By Gina Tabonares
Variety News Staff

A 36-year-old Chinese national was sentenced to three years of imprisonment for each count of alien smuggling charges filed against him last year.
Yi Xu Chen who pleaded guilty to counts 2 to 4 of an indictment charging alien smuggling for financial gain will serve the 3 years imprisonment for each count concurrently while government dismissed the other charges.
Upon release, Chen will be placed on supervised release for a term of three years for each count which will also be served concurrently. His downward departure motion was granted by his motion to release pending designation was denied.
His sentence was a result of his plea agreement he entered into on Nov. 9 2005 where he admitted that he agreed to assist Ling Ping Cai and Jin Mu in a scheme to smuggle illegal aliens, all Chinese citizens, from Saipan to Guam.
Chen and Cai recruited people to come to Guam and collected smuggling fees of about $4,500 each from the aliens.
He stated that Cai gave Mu $12,000 to purchase and equip a boat for the trip. Mu together with one Hai Xuan Zhou took the boat to Tinian.
Chen and Mu assembled nine aliens and took them to Guam. They landed them on the shore below the Mangilao Golf Course.
Zhou and his wife and a brother-in-law had agreed to pay $4,500 each to be smuggled to Guam but they had only made a down-payment of $6,000 prior to leaving Saipan. Once they arrived on Guam, Chen demanded and received another $5,000 payment from Zhou.
The aliens were, however, intercepted by Guam authorities and were subsequently put in jail.
Chen has been remanded to the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service after his sentencing.