Hong Kong Airport Workers Arrested in “Old Man” Refugee Plot

An unidentified Chinese man entered Canada last October wearing an elaborate disguise that made him look like an elderly white man.

Canadian immigration authorities are still trying to determine the true identity of the refugee claimant who has been in custody since Oct. 29, but one thing is certain: he is not the elderly man he pretended to be when he arrived in Vancouver. As hearings into his refugee claim continue, authorities in Hong Kong have arrested eight people, at least three of them current or former airport employees, for helping smuggle him out of the country. The suspects are believed to be part of a professional smuggling operation that facilitates illegal emigration out of China, and one of them is suspected of supplying the would-be refugee with fake travel documents after he cleared immigration checkpoints in Hong Kong.