Crime | PJ dismantles illegal immigration support group

The Judiciary Police (PJ) has dismantled the operation of a group dedicated to helping people illegally cross Macau’s border, the PJ announced in a special press conference.
In an operation held on the night of June 27, the PJ caught the group in the act, and detained three of its members. In the process, two illegal immigrants were also discovered. All people involved were Vietnamese nationals.
According to the PJ spokesperson, the case was first drawn to their attention across the course of another similar investigation, when on June 11 they found and detained two other Vietnamese nations involved in the same illegal act.
While investigating that case, they became aware of a second group undertaking the activity and prepared an anti-crime operation to detain them.
On June 27, around 11 p.m., the PJ caught the members of the group helping two illegal immigrants from Vietnam to leave Macau and enter the mainland at Hengqin Island.
Further investigation revealed that the same group was responsible for the illegal movement of the same people into Macau approximately three months earlier.
The three group members are a 33-year-old male staying in Macau with a temporary permanence permit, his partner, a 43-year-old woman working in Macau as a domestic helper, and a second woman, aged 52, who is also a domestic helper.
The PJ said that while the man had the role of helping the illegal immigrants to leave and enter Macau, his partner was in charge of getting the payments and maintaining contact with people interested in the scheme. The third woman worked as a go-between, attracting clients. To the PJ, she said she earned RMB2,000 for each client she would connect to the primary couple.
The PJ said that the two apprehended on June 11 refused to cooperate with the police and have chosen to remain silent.
The police noted that in the course of the investigation, they determined that the group would charge RMB12,000 for each illegal entry to or exit from Macau. They would use tools such as a rope to help the illegal immigrants in and out of the water, as the illegal immigrants had to swim for a section of the journey and were picked up and dropped off by the facilitating group in the vicinity of the campus of the University of Macau in Hengqin.
The PJ was able to determine that the illegal immigrants sought to enter Macau to find jobs as undocumented workers. It is suspected that they were also illegally staying in the mainland for the same purpose.
The PJ also found that one of the men caught trying to leave Macau had been previously involved in another case of illegal residence and had consequently been punished with a ban against entry to Macau for a four-month period.
According to the PJ, all the members of the group lived in an apartment located in the San Kio neighborhood.
The PJ said it had not been able to ascertain the number of people that this group helped to illegally enter Macau.