33 foreigners arrested for illegal entry

Thirty-three foreigners have been apprehended in South China's Guangdong province, where they had gone to seek work.

According to a statement from the border police of Maoming, Guangdong, the 33 stowaways, all from Southeast Asia and including five women, were traveling in a van on National Highway 325 when they were arrested on Wednesday afternoon.

According to a statement by one of the detainees, they decided to illegally immigrate to China when they read newspaper reports of a severe labor shortage in the industrial province of Guangdong after the Chinese lunar new year break, local police announced on Thursday.

Some of them were even planning to find a job in Hong Kong, the detainee said.

Each of the suspects had pre-paid an agent between 10,000 ($1,644) and 20,000 yuan for the trip.

The driver told police he was assigned the task of transporting these people to Maoming after receiving a phone call from a stranger in a city bordering China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, according to the China News Service.

The report did not name the nationality of the immigrants, but the only country neighboring Guangxi is Vietnam.

The case is under further investigation, the statement said.