Feds Smash Violent Gang Of Alien Smugglers

Taking aim at the network of alien smugglers who have brought hundreds of illegal Chinese immigrants to New York in recent years - and who often use kidnapping, torture and extortion to bolster profits - federal prosecutors said Friday that they had smashed a violent organized-crime gang that had terrorized Chinatown for years.

In a series of arrests this week, the authorities said they had captured 35 reputed members of the gang, known as the Fukienese Flying Dragons, including its top commanders in America. But the officials acknowledged that 25 other suspects had escaped the dragnet and that the gang’s two indicted bosses had fled to China.