Border guard officers in Quang Tri Province, north central Vietnam, have arrested two Chinese men for attempting to illegally bring 21 Vietnamese of ethnic minority groups into Laos by stealthily crossing the border.

The Lao Bao border guard station in Quang Tri’s Huong Hoa District on Thursday handed over two Chinese nationals, Zhu Gui Neng, 47, and Liu Fang Quan, 36, hailing from southern China’s Yunnan Province, to the provincial police department for investigation on charges of organizing for others to leave Vietnam illegally.

Earlier at 10:30 am on March 23, local border guard officers coordinated with other forces to catch the two Chinese men organizing for a group of 21 Vietnamese, including 20 of Hmong ethnic group and one of Tay minority people, to illegally cross the border in Huong Hoa to enter Laos. 

According to the case file, Zhu had one of his acquaintances in northern Vietnam’s Ha Giang Province recruit 21 workers, who will be employed to grow trees that provide wood materials for a paper company in Laos’ Savannakhet Province.

Under a mutual agreement, the cost of illegal exit was set at 280 Chinese yuan (US$38.7) per person and would be paid in advance by Zhu, who would get back the money later by deducting it from the workers’ salary after they have received their jobs in Laos.

As planned, Zhu and Liu entered Ha Giang via the Sam Pun border gate on March 21 and they then received the recruited workers and took them to Lao Bao international border gate in Huong Hoa.

When the two Chinese men were arranging for these Vietnamese to illegally cross the border to enter Laos, they were caught by local border guard officers.

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