33 Chinese travelers unaccounted

By Park Si-soo

A group of Chinese travelers were caught attempting to illegally enter Korean territory, the immigration authorities said Monday.

Forty four Chinese nationals were reportedly missing upon arrival at a port in Jeju Island on a luxurious cruise from Shanghai, Sunday morning. Eleven were apprehended by police hours later, but the other 33 are still at large, police said.

A large scale manhunt — jointly conducted by police and the immigration office — is underway in the largest island of the country.

This is the first time that a group of Chinese people who landed here disguised as travelers have fled, the authorities said. They suspect that the purpose of the runaways is to stay and find work.

“All of them left their passports and belongings on the boat, which indicates that the purpose of their visit to Korea was not to travel but to get a job,” said a Jeju Immigration Office official.

The 52,000-ton cruise boat, Costa Classica, anchored in Jeju at 7 a.m., carrying 1,311 travelers. It left for Shanghai at 3 p.m.

Chinese nationals account for nearly half of the 174,000 undocumented foreigners here, according to the Ministry of Justice.