By GREG ANSLEY
CANBERRA - There were a million good reasons for the sudden rush of Chinese fast-tracked to Australian citizenship.
Not one of them was legal.
This week, in yet another warning of the soaring global trade in people and passports, authorities in Australia and Hong Kong cracked a gang supplying Australian citizenship for cash.
Unlike scams operating in the Middle East, where fake Australian visas and identity documents are openly on sale for $US5000 ($11,600), this was the real thing.
At its heart was a corrupt and not-yet-named immigration official in Sydney who earned about $A1 million ($1.21 million) in bribes by flashing 140 Chinese through the citizenship process under special provisions bypassing normal requirements.
In Hong Kong, the Independent Commission Against Corruption arrested a local emigration consultant, two associates and 26 customers following a year-long investigation into the Australian official's unusually high number of fast-tracked approvals.
By the time of his arrest, the commission said, the consultant had earned $A5 million by charging up to $A100,000 for new passports.
The client list ran from people simply wanting a new life to criminals increasing the scope and flexibility of their international travel.
And in Nairobi, the United Nations is investigating five refugee officials - one Italian and four Kenyans - who allegedly charged up to $US5000 a head to push the fortunate and moneyed to the front of queues heading to Australia, Canada and the United States.
With the surge in organised crime's exploitation of the desperation of the world's refugees - the United Nations estimates that people trafficking is now a $US7 billion-a-year industry - the uncovering of the two scams is more confirmation than surprise.
Australia has been a growing destination for traffickers, operating out of China and the Middle East through syndicates also pumping people into Europe and North America.
The trade is a low-risk, high-return ventures for traffickers - but expensive and dangerous for the desperate.
Although smuggling people into Australia by air using false documentation is an increasing problem, the most visible stream of illegal migrants arrives by sea after hazardous voyages, often in decrepit boats and at times during the deadly cyclone season of the country's northern approaches.
From China, sea routes either slip out from the porous coastline of Fujian province, skirting Papua New Guinea to land on the north or east coast of Australia, or wind down from Beihei, near the border with Vietnam, through the South China Sea to Indonesia.
Indonesia is also the hub for routes running from Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Iraq, Turkey and Algeria, flourishing on transporting the millions displaced by war and poverty.
Increasingly, traffickers have been targeting economic refugees - people with the money to pay thousands of dollars for the chance of a new life in Australia.
Rising numbers of Iranians, Syrians and Palestinians have been among the clients on the Australian routes.
Point-men for the syndicates in Indonesia herd their clients on to boats frequently manned by local fishermen for a journey out of the archipelago that most often ends at Ashmore Reef, a desolate strip of land off the northwestern coast of Australia.
Last year, more than 2700 people made the journey.
They do not find a ready welcome.
Australian officials track the boats through intelligence arrangements with agencies in the Middle East, China and Indonesia, and intercept many with RAAF Orion aircraft and patrol boats.
Others have landed: groups have been found wandering in the harsh north, and others fled after grounding their boat in northern New South Wales.
In response, Australia last year poured $A124 million more into its coastal surveillance network, including new satellite communications technology and a new national surveillance centre linked to state government agencies and defence bases.
In December, two new Dash 8 patrol aircraft - with an electronic search capability of 80,000 sq nautical miles - and a new night-capable helicopter to patrol the Torres Strait were added to the Coastwatch fleet.
Tough new fines and controls have also been introduced, including fingerprint, DNA, voice and retinal recognition tests to establish the identities of asylum-seekers who frequently try to conceal their origins.
The cost to Australia, both financially and politically, is high. Finding, intercepting and detaining illegal migrants costs about $A120 million a year.
Their detention has become a political nightmare, with riots, hunger strikes, mass breakouts and persistent claims of neglect, violence and sexual abuse plaguing the Government.
After a series of revelations and allegations, Australian newspapers nicknamed a big new centre in the Outback Gulag Woomera.
An entire network of refugee activists has sprung up on the internet protesting against policies that saw Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock booed at an anti-racism conference in Sydney this week.
Immigration scams busted but trade in humans soars
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