VANCOUVER—A Vancouver man who exploited an international park to smuggle Chinese migrants into this country will have to spend another 17 months in jail, a judge ordered Friday.

Michael Kong, 63, dressed in a pink shirt and navy slacks, showed little emotion as B.C. provincial court Judge Patrick Doherty sentenced him to 3 1/2 years, but gave him credit for the time he has served in pre-trial custody. Doherty also ordered Kong to pay a $175,000 fine.

The judge said that while human-smuggling poses a threat to border integrity and security, Kong is not a violent person and has shown genuine remorse. He also noted that Kong was dealt a “severe personal blow” when his wife died by suicide while he was in custody.

“Unfortunately, he has suffered significant personal tragedy as a result of his detention. He has pleaded guilty and shown true remorse for his behaviour,” the judge said.

The announcement of Kong’s sentence brings to an end a case that stood out for the scope, novelty and sheer audacity of the crime.

According to the agreed statement of facts, the scheme originated in China. Chinese nationals agreed to pay people in that country, described by prosecutors as “snakeheads,” between $20,000 and $30,000 US to help them get fraudulent student or visitor visas to travel to the United States. Most visas were obtained from the U.S. consulate in Guangzhou, a major city north of Hong Kong.

Once in the U.S., Kong would arrange for drivers to pick up the migrants in the Seattle area and drop them off near a set of washrooms on the U.S. side of Peace Arch Park, an international park that straddles the B.C.-Washington State border and is located next to a busy port of entry. The park itself had no physical barriers.

The migrants were “surreptitiously guided” through the park to a waiting vehicle on the Canadian side. (Investigators found an aerial image of Peace Arch Park on Kong’s home computer with coloured dots indicating the washrooms on the U.S. side and a gap in a hedge on the Canadian side, as well as WeChat text logs on his iPhone discussing arrangements to bring people across the border). Most migrants were taken to the Vancouver International Airport and flown to Toronto, where they made refugee claims.

“Mr. Kong, controlled, coordinated and facilitated the movement of the irregular migrants during a critical stage of the human smuggling operation — from the U.S. into Canada across an international land border,” federal Crown prosecutor Charles Hough wrote in his sentencing submissions.

Kong told investigators he typically charged $1,500 to $2,000 US per person for this portion of their journey. When investigators searched his home, they found a box under a desk containing $119,000 in U.S. bills.

Although Kong pleaded guilty to five counts of violating Section 117 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act involving the smuggling of 27 individuals, including children, he may have helped “many hundreds more” sneak into the country, Hough told the court.

Though not part of the agreed statement of facts, an affidavit previously filed by Canada Border Services Agency investigator David Ng indicated an electronic ledger — or “score sheet” — found on Kong’s home computer contained the names of 932 people believed to have been irregular migrants or foreign suspects involved in the smuggling scheme.

When those names were run through a federal database, investigators learned that 330 of them had made refugee claims in Canada — most of them in an immigration office in Etobicoke, the affidavit said.

The large volume of refugee claims from Chinese nationals at that Etobicoke office — and the similar patterns of travel — triggered the CBSA investigation, court documents state.

Kong, who immigrated to Canada from Hong Kong in 1976 and had spent three decades working in B.C.’s sawmill industry, became a person of interest because of two previous convictions for similar offences at Peace Arch Park — one involving the illegal entry of two Mexican nationals, the other involving three Chinese nationals.

“Mr. Kong’s contribution to this sophisticated organized international human-smuggling operation was motivated by unadulterated greed,” Hough told the court. “Prior convictions and incarceration did not deter Mr. Kong.”

While Kong’s repeat offences were an aggravating factor, the judge said Friday there was no indication that Kong ever mistreated the migrants or that they were the subject of violence or intimidation.

The judge noted that while in remand, Kong had taken a number of self-improvement courses.

“The events of Ms. Kong’s suicide,” he added, “I view as a significant and adverse collateral consequence of Mr. Kong’s offending behaviour. This event will affect him adversely for the remainder of his life.”

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As the Star reported earlier this week, Kong wrote a letter to the judge in which he expressed regret for his actions and acknowledged how they had potentially jeopardized the security of the country.

“I have been ignorant, selfish and never honestly thought of the repercussions that I was causing,” he wrote.

Kong’s lawyer, Shelley Sugarman, told the court that Kong believed the people he was aiding deserved a better life.

Speaking generally and not about this specific case, Shelley Levine, an immigration lawyer who has been helping people file and appeal refugee claims in Toronto for 30 years, said it is not uncommon for smugglers to exploit the people they help across the border.

They either charge them “exorbitant amounts of money” or peddle a fantasy life in Canada that is unrealistic, he said.

Smugglers will tell people “they can take them out of whatever situation they’re in in China and they’ll arrive in a country where the roads are paved in gold,” he said.

Levine said migrants, whether legitimate refugee claimants or not, don’t usually share their life story with him. But over 30 years he has picked up bits and pieces. In some instances, Levin said, again speaking generally, people who are smuggled into Canada end up in indentured labour where they have to work “ridiculously low pay for ridiculously long hours in order to pay off the smuggling debt," he said.

Some migrants resort to paying a smuggler because they are fleeing a legitimate threat and this is the only way they can escape. Others are simply trying to make a better life for themselves economically.

But either way, these migrants often end up being victims of economic exploitation, he said.

“You feel sympathetic toward people who think their circumstances are so bad that that is considered preferable to whatever they are living through in China,” he said.

Before adjourning Friday, the judge addressed Kong directly.

“Mr. Kong, best of luck to you,” he said. “Make the best of it and get on with your life.”

With files from Wanyee Li

DQ Douglas Quan is a Toronto Star reporter based in Vancouver.

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