Police apprehended 41 males identified as Chinese illegal aliens in the Coral Bay area of St. John in the pre-dawn hours Monday and took them into custody.
A release from the Immigration and Naturalization Service said that St. John police were notified by a caller around 5:45 a.m. of the presence of the men in the area and that officers responded and picked up the 41 men. INS officers later transported the group to St. Thomas for processing.
Virgin Islands INS officer in charge Ronald Parra said his staff was "in the process of gathering additional intelligence evidence" pursuant to prosecuting the illegal aliens.
Key objectives of the investigation, Parra said, were to determine what boats were used to carry the men to St. John, who captained those vessels, and what the aliens' "modes and routes of transportation to the Caribbean" were.
According to Parra, those dropping the aliens ashore have identified the Virgin Islands as an area from which the illegals can try to "travel undetected to the U.S. mainland for whatever their purposes might be."
A week ago, authorities picked up another 15 persons identified as Chinese illegal aliens in Red Hook on St. Thomas. Parra said investigators are seeking to determine whether the two cases are related —- but indicated there was little doubt in his mind that they were.
"We believe that we are very close to identifying the source organization bringing these loads into the Caribbean," he said.
Because of the numbers of such landings and because the numbers of aliens involved seem to be increasing, he expressed concern for "the impact that the growing size and frequency of these smuggling loads are having on our limited resources on all three islands."
However, he added, with support from police and the public, the INS "can continue to successfully interdict and positively identify" groups entering the territory illegally.
