12,600 illegal immigrants arrested in past 4 years

Police have handled more than 6,400 cases of people trying to go abroad illegally since 2004, the Ministry of Public Security said yesterday.

A total of 12,645 people had been arrested, including 2,213 "snakeheads" (human traffickers), it said on its website.

Frontier police have made significant progress in the prevention and control of such activities in the past four years because of increased monitoring of major roads, mountain paths and other overland routes linking China to the outside world, it said.