ring, it emerged yesterday.

The New York Times disclosed details of the plot yesterday which saw at least 100 Chinese immigrants smuggled into the US by ship from South America between 1997 and June, 1998.

The smugglers were nabbed when they ran into trouble off the New Jersey coast in May.

An organiser of the ring, 57-year-old Nam Jick Cho, appeared in Newark's Federal District Court on Wednesday and pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges.

The court heard that the contraband Chinese were flown or shipped from China to Surinam where they were squeezed aboard a 120-foot fishing boat named the Oriental 1 which transported them to the US.

On the vessel's final voyage, the Oriental 1 was scheduled to take 50 immigrants -- the normal load was about 20 -- to drop-off points in Belmar, New Jersey and the Bahamas.

The ship broke down in Bermuda and Cho had to fly down with new equipment.

A spokesman for Harbour Radio said last night that the Oriental 1 never came into a Bermudian port but did do an off shore transfer on May 21.

The spokesman said the matter was not handled by Harbour Radio but there was a record of a ship's representative travelling to the Island with the parts and going out to the ship, which was offshore, on a chartered boat.

After being repaired the vessel continued. On May 30, Cho met the Oriental 1 in a smaller powerboat called the Oops II and picked up 23 immigrants.

On his way back to shore he ran into dense fog which caused him to become lost. He then ran out of gas and was forced to drop the immigrants off at the affluent town of Bay Head, New Jersey, where he ran aground.

The Oriental 1 was stopped in the Bahamas after dropping off 20 more immigrants.

The incident echoes that of the Xing Da , when the rusty freighter carrying around 100 illegal aliens bound for the US from China was seized off Bermuda in October, 1996, by the US Coast Guard.