Undocumented Chinese nationals using luxury yachts to enter Florida

Luxury yachts like this 70-foot Hatteras yacht are being used for human smuggling into Florida.

Dozens of people from China were caught trying to come into the US by luxury yachts operating out of the Caribbean. Operators of the yachts were charging their clients thousands of dollars and then set them ashore in Florida. 

CBS reports that Saturday, authorities caught 12 people seen running from a small boat that came ashore Friday in Palm Beach. Of those caught and detained Friday, ICE said nine were Chinese nationals, two were Cuban and one Bahamian.

The Miami Herald last week reported on some recent instances when the Coast Guard stopped two yachts approaching the South Florida shore, leading to the arrests of three men accused of transporting a total of 26 Chinese passengers and one Bahamian, court records show. 

The human smuggling operations were not related, however.

Rocco Oppedisano, a 51-year-old Italian national, is scheduled for arraignment in Miami federal court Wednesday on charges of conspiring to transport 14 Chinese and one Bahamian taken into the United States for financial gain. The vessel he was using was a 63-foot Sunseeker yacht named INXS FINALLY.

In the other instance 14 Chinese and one Bahamian without the proper visas were found aboard  a 70-foot Hatteras yacht about 20 miles east of South Florida on July 23. In that instance the captain and crewman were arrested along with the the Chinese and Bahamian.

Authorities say that historically Haitians and Cubans made up most of those trying to illegally come ashore in South Florida, but it seems the number of Chinese arrivals is on the rise.

CBS noted that Chinese companies have dramatically increased their investment and presence in the Bahamas in recent years. That could account for at least some of the surge in Chinese nationals trying to enter the US illegally.