Visa shift may make Berlin a hub for Chinese traffickers

Chinese tourists love Germany's fairytale castles, romantic scenery and beer. Chinese criminals apparently prefer lax visa requirements that have allowed human traffickers to smuggle thousands of illegal immigrants into the European Union.

Already rocked by allegations the Ukrainian underworld was moving prostitutes and criminals into the EU via Germany, officials in Berlin are now concerned organised crime in China is abusing a new visa application process at the embassy in Beijing to bring unprecedented numbers of people to Europe illegally.

Since September last year, Chinese tourist-visa applicants no longer have to be interviewed by embassy staff. Instead authorised travel agencies have the power to issue visas. A sharp spike in the number of visas granted in Beijing has set off alarm bells in Berlin.

'Already after the first experiences using this procedure there is the fear that visas could be issued under false pretences leading to abuse on a massive scale,' German Deputy Foreign Minster Juergen Chrobog wrote in a leaked letter to the Interior Ministry.

Last year, more than 220,000 Chinese received a German visa - more than the total number of visas granted by the entire EU the year before.

Mr Chrobog noted over 15,000 visas were allotted in only a matter of weeks after the agreement easing visa requirements between China and 13 EU states went into effect.

Germany was the first European country to implement the so-called Approved Destination Status (ADS) for private Chinese tourists in February 2003.