PEOPLE

Tap he had close connections with the Chinese commercial cornmunity
in southern Vietnam. Born in China, Kwok went to Hong
Kong in 1954, living and working there until, in 1969, he moved
to Saigon. In 1976, the year after the communists took power, he
returned to Hong Kong, leaving in Saigon a wife, son, and nvo
younger brothers, Kwok and his family were all on the Huq fing
when it sailed into Hong Kong shortly before Chrismas 1978.
Like the Hai How, the Hug, Fong was a dilapidated general cargo
vessel flying the ~a&rnanian hag, fit Hwy &nR was supposed to
be on a voyage from Bangkok to Kaohsiung, a port in Taiwan, The
Taiwmese captain of the ship first conracted the Hong Kong marine
department on 19 December when he was off southern Vietnam: he
claimed to have rescued boatloads of refugees at sea. When she
anchored outside Hong Kong on 23 December the Hug Fong was
crammed with 3318 men, women and children from southern Vietnam,
mostly ethnic Chinese. Alened by the case of the Hai How,
authorities were immediately suspicious. The Huey Fong finally
sailed into Hong Kong waters on 19 January 1979, despite the fact
that she was advixd to p r d to her original destination and the
captain was warned that if he entered Hong Kong he would face the
consequences of the law,
On 23 January, as the last batch of rcfugccs went ashore into
camps pending resettlcmcdt overxas, police started interviewing the
capkin and crew. Three days later the first cachc of gold taels was
found on board, On 7 February, 3500 tatls (worth $1 050 000) were
discovered hidden in the engine room. Twelve men were charged
with conspiracy to defraud the Hong Kong government by bringing
refugees in by 'illeg~l pretence'. They were the captain, six of his
officers, a Sino-Vietnamese from southern Vietnam, and four
Chinese bueinessmen with connections in both Hong Kong and
Viemam, one of whom was 'Shorty' Kwok.
The Huey Fong trial was the first cuurt case to expose the organization
behind the big-ship refugee racket, The hearing in Hong Kong
from 7 June to 1 August revcaltd that the methds of the Huv FoPrg
upation had becn similar to those of the Hai Hong, the main difference
being thst Hung Kong rather than Singapore was home base,
There had ken the usual hard bargaining over splitting the profits.
Coded communications between organizers in southern Vietnam
and thosc outride had referred to potential refugee passengers as
'frozen ducks', the ship as 'the bride' and the proposed date of arrival
in Vietnamese waters as 'the wedding date'. The captain had tampered
with the log book in an attempt to cover up the unschedu~ed
call in the Saigon River. h one statement, which he later admitted
to be false, the captain had pretended he had no knowledge of
'Shorty' Kwok although the Hong Kong businessman was on bard
for the whole of the voyagc.
Another uf the three Hong Kong Chinese businessmen who were
tried in the Huey Fong case was 58-yew-old Lo Wing. He had
arrived in Hong Kong from Vietn~m in October 1978 with the
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intention of getting a ship to collect Vietnamese refugees. He was
put in touch with Kwok who, in liaison with Viemamere authorities
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or their ethnic Chinese agents, arranged for the Huey Ang to be
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chartered from a Taiwan company. In a statement to police red out
in court, Lo Wing said rcspetable and iduentisl Chinese group i
leaders in Vietnam had regularly txcn making arrangements for :
refugees to go to Hong Kong.
Another of the accused, Tiet Quoc Lien, a 44-year-old Chinese
from southern Vietnam who had arrived in Hong Kong on the Huey
Fofig, said his father had asked Lo Wing, before the latter had left
Ho Chi Minh City for Hong Kong in 1978, to help arrange the
cxodus of refugees, According to Kwok, Tict's father, Kwong Shuk
(known as 'Uncle' Kwong), who had supported the communists in
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the south before they ame to power in 1975, was 'very influential'
in southern Vietnam.
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Tiet Quoc Lien also said in his statement that I]
the Vietnamesc government had changed its policy towards refugees
in October 1978. Since then, the government had ordered the security
department to send ploin-elothes officers to respectable Chinese ?
in Vietnam who could nmnge the exodus, Tia said the Vietnamese
government had invented s slogan: 'You Chinese should rescue your 1
own Chinese people'.
Kwok said that the Huey fi~g had been met off Vung Tau on
13 December 1978 hy two Vietnamese gunboats carrying Tict Quoc
l,i,
Lien and four plain-clothes police. The next day, after being guided
to a position further upriver, a party of Vietnamese officials boarded; I;
with them WPS 'Uncle' Kwong. Kwok, the officials and Kwong then
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went ashore in a small boat and drove to Ho Chi Minh City. They
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