Coast Guard says it stopped a Chinese migrant on a paddleboard off the Bahamas
A week after 26 people from China landed in Coral Gables in what authorities say was a migrant smuggling operation launched from the Bahamas, the Coast Guard reports that one of its crews stopped a man from China trying to migrate to the U.S. from the island nation on a paddleboard.
The crew of the cutter Sea Horse spotted the man paddling about 25 miles off Freeport, Bahamas, on Tuesday, the agency said in a statement on the social media platform X.
They picked him up and transported him back to the Bahamas, according to the statement.
The interdiction comes as South Florida has seen several recent incidents of Chinese migrants arriving in the area, usually via smugglers.
READ MORE: Chinese migrants picked up in Gables were headed to Orlando, man tells feds. Boat found
Last Tuesday, Jan. 28, there were two incidents, one in which the group of 26 Chinese nationals were loaded into two vans on Old Cutler Road in the Gables, which were pulled over by police and federal agents, and the other when U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents stopped a boat on the maritime border between Miami-Dade and Monroe counties.
Agents found four people from Ecuador and two from China on the vessel, according to a Customs spokesperson.
READ MORE: Migrant boat carrying Chinese, Ecuadorians stopped same day of Gables smuggling bust
In the Coral Gables incident, federal agents arrested four people accused of smuggling the people by boat from the Bahamas. As of Wednesday, Homeland Security Investigations — the agency investigating the maritime stop — has not released the launching point of the vessel that was interdicted at sea.
Two weeks earlier, federal agents took three Cuban men into custody after they were found in nearly the same area in Coral Gables as the Jan. 28 bust with more than 20 migrants, mostly from China, in a U-haul van and Toyota Corolla sedan.
READ MORE: Cuban smuggler promised $5K, then caught with over 20 Chinese migrants in Miami: feds
Those people were also smuggled from the Bahamas, according to court records.
In that case, a witness reported seeing a woman being forced into the Toyota, according to arrest reports.
