Airport authorities catch man with fake passport

By Dong Zhen  |   2008-6-10  |     ONLINE EDITION

HONGQIAO Airport authorities seized a man who intended to sneak back to China from South Korea with a bogus passport.

It's the first illegal-entry scam cracked since the airport resumed international flights in September, said Hongqiao Airport immigration police today.

Police said many Chinese stowaways fail to build a good life after illegally moving overseas and are making use of the same trick to avoid immigration authorities at airports.

``The passports are obtained with the stowaway's photo but with someone else's personal information,'' said Liu Yongjian, an airport immigration police officer. ``It's more difficult for authorities to recognize such passports at Customs checks.''

The suspect, whom police only identified by his surname Jin, was seized on Sunday morning.

An immigration police officer was suspicion of Jin's age and took him for questioning.

Jin was born in 1955 and is an ethnic Korean, police said. He later confessed to have paid an agency for the passport. The passport was issued based on the application's information of another man who was born in 1943 and Jin's photo.

Police said it's impossible for Jin to apply for a passport now, without giving further details.

Jin paid 30,000 yuan to marry a Chinese woman with relatives in South Korea. He flew to South Korea to find a job in 2000. He traveled on a family-visit visa.

Jin used the bogus passport to get a legal travel permit in South Korea to return to China.