Smuggling Japan

In this golf-crazy land, the Biggu Basa may be the ultimate American import success story. The Biggu Basa-- as the Japanese have dubbed the Big Bertha golf club made by Carlsbad, Calif.-based Callaway Golf Co.-- draws much praise here. "When you hit a ball that's on the ground, it's easy for it to go too low or off to the side.

Chinese authorities on Monday ordered a Hong Kong businessman who carried thousands of Bibles into China to spend two years in prison--a lighter sentence than many had expected. Hong Kong merchant Li Guangqiang was convicted of "illegal business activities" by a court in the southeastern province of Fujian, relatives and fellow church members said. Two associates of Li from the mainland were sentenced to three-year prison terms, and each of the three was fined the equivalent of $18,000.

Smugglers used stolen or falsified export documents to ship more than 120,000 skins of a protected member of the alligator family into Japan in the past seven months, a wildlife protection organization said. Traffic Japan, the trade monitoring group of the World Wide Fund for Nature, said the smugglers shipped South American caiman skins by a complex route involving at least seven South American and Asian countries.

Japan is awash in boat people. Japanese law enforcement has been stunned by a sudden influx of illegal immigrants, mainly Chinese, Koreans, Pakistanis and other Asians who arrive in rickety fishing boats and sneak ashore in the middle of the night on deserted coastlines in western Japan. Police blame a new alliance between Chinese "snakeheads," members of syndicates that specialize in smuggling illegal immigrants into lucrative labor markets, and Japanese yakuza gangsters.

Hoffman Sentenced for Illegal Exports: A Los Angeles scientist was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in federal prison for exporting classified computer programs used in "Star Wars" research and in satellites that detected Iraqi Scud missile launches during the Gulf War. Ronald J. Hoffman, 52, also was fined $225,000. He was convicted Feb. 24 on charges stemming from selling and exporting the computer software for more than $773,000 to four Japanese firms and to U.S.

Japan is awash in boat people. Japanese law enforcement has been stunned by a sudden influx of illegal immigrants, mainly Chinese, Koreans, Pakistanis and other Asians who arrive in rickety fishing boats and sneak ashore in the middle of the night on deserted coastlines in western Japan. Police blame a new alliance between Chinese "snakeheads," members of syndicates that specialize in smuggling illegal immigrants into lucrative labor markets, and Japanese yakuza gangsters.

Chinese authorities on Monday ordered a Hong Kong businessman who carried thousands of Bibles into China to spend two years in prison--a lighter sentence than many had expected. Hong Kong merchant Li Guangqiang was convicted of "illegal business activities" by a court in the southeastern province of Fujian, relatives and fellow church members said. Two associates of Li from the mainland were sentenced to three-year prison terms, and each of the three was fined the equivalent of $18,000.

Jorge Guzman, a special agent for the Immigration and Naturalization Service, has a price on his head. It is his reward for snapping at the heels of one of the biggest, and most profitable, human smuggling operations in the world, a network that in turn fuels criminal enterprises from drug trafficking to credit card fraud, from prostitution to extortion. A broad man with a broad grin, Guzman wears his moods on his sleeve. Shielding himself behind the mask and monotone so typical of his law- enforcement colleagues is clearly an unnatural act. Nor does he suffer fools easily, on either side of the law--the grin can disappear in a flash.

In this golf-crazy land, the Biggu Basa may be the ultimate American import success story. The Biggu Basa-- as the Japanese have dubbed the Big Bertha golf club made by Carlsbad, Calif.-based Callaway Golf Co.-- draws much praise here. "When you hit a ball that's on the ground, it's easy for it to go too low or off to the side.

Hoffman Sentenced for Illegal Exports: A Los Angeles scientist was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in federal prison for exporting classified computer programs used in "Star Wars" research and in satellites that detected Iraqi Scud missile launches during the Gulf War. Ronald J. Hoffman, 52, also was fined $225,000. He was convicted Feb. 24 on charges stemming from selling and exporting the computer software for more than $773,000 to four Japanese firms and to U.S.

Smugglers used stolen or falsified export documents to ship more than 120,000 skins of a protected member of the alligator family into Japan in the past seven months, a wildlife protection organization said. Traffic Japan, the trade monitoring group of the World Wide Fund for Nature, said the smugglers shipped South American caiman skins by a complex route involving at least seven South American and Asian countries.