operation was imprisoned for seven years by a US court yesterday.

Hui Lin, of New York, had already pleaded guilty in the US District Court in Boston to four charges that stemmed from a "sting'' operation in which a rusty freighter was seized off Bermuda with more than 100 Chinese illegal immigrants jammed in its hold.

Lin was one of seven people charged in the undercover operation involving the Immigration and Naturalisation Service (INS) and the US Coast Guard's Investigative Service with assistance from the Massachusetts State Police and the Boston Police Department.

He admitted conspiring and attempting to knowingly bring illegal aliens to the US for the purposes of commercial advantage and private financial gain, and conspiring and attempting to knowingly bring aliens into the US at a place other than a designated port of entry.

Yesterday a US Justice Department spokeswoman told The Royal Gazette that Lin, along with two other defendants, arranged in the US last year for a fishing vessel to depart Boston to meet the Xing Da which was coming from China with illegal aliens on board.

The fishing vessel was to off-load the illegal aliens and bring them back to Boston but the owner of the fishing vessel was an undercover special agent of the INS.

On October 2, the Coast Guard intercepted the Xing Da with about 109 illegal aliens on board near a pre-arranged rendezvous point in international waters off Bermuda.

Lin was arrested in New York on October 3.

US District Judge Robert Keeton more than doubled Lin's sentence because he found the passengers aboard the Xing Da had been subjected to dangerous conditions and inhumane treatment.

Four of Lin's co-defendants will be sentenced in January, 1998.

One of his conspirators, Nai Fook Li, has already been sentenced to six years imprisonment on identical charges.

Li was arrested aboard the fishing vessel where he had been maintaining communication between the boat and the Xing Da .

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant US Attorneys Alex Whiting and Susan Hanson-Philbrick of Stern's Organised Crime Strike Force Unit.