Fujian Province's coast guard on Saturday nabbed 13 human smugglers, four of whom were Taiwanese, China's official Xinhua news agency reported.
The report said the Chinese coast guard also arrested five women preparing to sneak into Taiwan.
The crackdown came after six Chinese women drowned on Tuesday after their smugglers dumped them into the sea in order to evade capture by Taiwan's coast guard.
Shi Hwi-yow (
Meanwhile, the National Police Agency's Immigration Office said dealing with cross-strait human smuggling has cost the government more than NT$3 billion over the past eight years.
Chinese people found illegally sneaking into Taiwan are accommodated in designated shelters. The average period of detention in these shelters before repatriation to China is 180 days, the Immigration Office said.
Holding the illegal immigrants costs about NT$26,000 per detainee.
The Immigration Office said it exhausted its NT$120 million budget to deal with illegal Chinese immigrants and has accumulated a deficit of more than NT$7 million. The deficit is expected to shoot up to NT$20 million by the end of the year.
In 1996, the government budgeted NT$150 million to handle illegal Chinese immigrants.
Each sheltered illegal Chinese immigrant is given NT$70 per day for their three meals. They also get a monthly sundries allowance of NT$160, according to the Immigration Office.
Moreover, policing the shelters for illegal immigrants is costly. About 350 policemen across the country man the shelters, each of which requires about 50 officers.
Each police officer earns about NT$60,000 per month and the government pays the special police force NT$21 million per month.
The Coast Guard Administration also has to pay NT$1 million for its force to combat human trafficking.
The Immigration Office said China used to take back its illegal immigrants every month so that those staying in Taiwan's shelters would not exceed 500.
However, China did not take any illegal immigrants back from April to October last year, allowing the number of immigrants in detention to surpass 1,000.
China began to take back its illegal immigrants in October last year. Returnees average about 150 people per month, but the illegal immigrants nabbed in Taiwan every month amount to around 200.
Currently, the shelters hold more than 2,000 illegal Chinese immigrants, the Immigration Office said.
"If the number of illegal Chinese immigrants keeps growing, our government will have to dig deep into its pockets," said a police officer in a Hsinchu immigration shelter.
Besides paying for the immigrants' food, groceries and medicine, the shelters also have to cover the funeral expenses when the immigrants die, the police officer said.
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