Thirty Indonesians have been arrested on charges of buying forged passports to enter Korea, with four of them being deported, police said Thursday.
According to the Gyeonggi Provincial Police Agency, the suspects, all of whom are Indonesian nationals, allegedly paid up to 8 million won (US$7,372) for each fake passport from a broker in their home country, entered South Korea in 2010 and have since worked at factories across the country.
The suspects first came here as industrial trainees but were deported around 2003 to 2005 after overstaying their visas, the police said.
Under the relevant law, a foreign industrial trainee is allowed to stay here up to three years and, if forcibly deported, is not allowed to re-enter the country within five years of their deportation.
The suspects told police they entered the country illegally to earn money here, as their monthly incomes here of up to 2 million won is around 10 times more than they could earn in Indonesia. (Yonhap)