The Immigration Department has warned of an emerging people-smuggling tactic in which illegal migrants use genuine Hong Kong passports to travel overseas via the city.
The trend coincides with a sharp decline in the use of bogus travel documents - once widely used by people-smugglers - following the introduction of more sophisticated e-passports.
The new tactic was detected 96 times last year. Most cases involved mainlanders who impersonated the rightful passport holders to board flights. Fifteen of those cases involved Hong Kong passports. Six of them held genuine e-passports issued by the department after February 2007.
'Some mainland illegal migrants will come to Hong Kong for a stopover using their legitimate passports, usually with a valid visa to Thailand,' Eric Chan Kwok-ki, the department's assistant director for enforcement and litigation, said.
'They check in for the Thailand-bound flight and wait in the airport's transit lounge, where members of smuggling syndicates bring them genuine passports and boarding passes for their real destinations.'
The scheme costs each illegal migrant HK$150,000 to HK$300,000.