Chinese steward sentenced in Finland for organizing illegal immigration

The Vantaa District Court of Finland has sentenced a Chinese man employed by Finnair to one year and eight months' imprisonment for smuggling undocumented migrants to Europe, reported Finnish national broadcaster Yle on Thursday.

The Chinese man, who worked as a steward for an Asian subcontractor of Finnair, was detained by the Finnish Border Guard in February on suspicion of aggravated facilitation of illegal entry into the country.

The man had allegedly smuggled 33 Chinese people in the past three years into continental Europe via Finland by helping them to bypass the border control at the Helsinki-Vantaa Airport without the required visas.

He used a staff identity card to open a side door at the airport, allowing the smuggled people to evade the border checks for entering the Schengen area. All of the migrants continued travelling to other Schengen countries.

Finnish media reported earlier that the steward charged the migrants 10,000 euros(11,370 U.S. dollars) for an adult, and 30,000 euros for a child. Among the 33 illegal travelers, 14 were underage persons.

The Finnish court, therefore, ordered the defendant to pay a total of 30,000 euros of his illegal gains to the state of Finland.

When the news was first reported in April, Chinese embassy in Finland reaffirmed Chinese governmental opposition to human smuggling.

The embassy said it had requested the Finnish authorities to handle the case impartially and in accordance with the law. It also called for protection of legitimate rights of the suspect. Endit