The flow of boat people shows no sign of abating
                 despite Australia's comprehensive detection
                 system

                 SYDNEY -- Australian police have mounted a series of
                 raids on restaurants, bars and gambling clubs in Sydney
                 as part of a crackdown aimed at discouraging a flood of
                 illegal migrants, officials said yesterday.

                 In a raid by police and immigration officers in Sydney's
                 Chinatown on Friday, 24 suspects were arrested.

                 A police spokesman said 28 suspected illegals had been
                 arrested in Sydney during the previous three nights in the
                 latest phase of a crackdown known as Operation
                 Pirbright. A total of 60 had been detained since last
                 October.

                 The raids come as the government admits to increasing
                 concern over the flood of illegal immigrants into
                 Australia, which it believes is organised by a network of
                 international criminals.

                 Another 50 boat people arrested on Saturday at
                 Ashmore Reef, northwest of Darwin, will join more than
                 3,600 already in detention centres awaiting a ruling on
                 their requests for asylum.

                 Most of those caught in the Chinatown raid are Chinese,
                 but the boat people are predominantly from Iraq or
                 Afghanistan who have come in through Indonesia.

                 Justice Minister Amanda Vanstone said on Saturday that
                 Australia's detection and interception measures were
                 among the world's best, yet the flow of boat people
                 showed no sign of abating.

                 "People-trafficking and smuggling is now very similar to
                 drugs in that it's run by people who are in it for money,"
                 she said.

                 "It has shifted from being a problem with people who
                 were simply getting what boat they could and hoping
                 they could get to Australia, to being a problem where
                 we have to deal with an international criminal element."

                 The flood of boat people into Australia over recent
                 months is believed to cost taxpayers an extra A$100
                 million (S$106 million), most of which is used to
                 upgrade security and accommodation. -- AFP

                      Adapted from The Straits Times, 14 Feb 2000.