The Associated Press State. Reprinted with permission.

Federal authorities have indicted three people, two of them citizens of China, on charges of smuggling Chinese aliens into the United States aboard a ship that arrived in Seattle - with three of the aliens dead.

The indictments filed May 1 were unsealed Tuesday, U.S. Attorney Francis J. Diskin announced.

Eighteen people were found huddled inside a container from the Japanese-owned Cape May when it docked at the Port of Seattle in January 2000. Three of them were dead; a fourth died later in New York.

Kam Hung Chan, 39, Chao Kang Lin, 29, and Jin Ma, 27, were charged with conspiracy to smuggle illegal aliens and alien smuggling. Chan and Lin are citizens of China while Ma is a permanent resident alien from Flushing, N.Y., Diskin said.

Federal authorities accused them of conspiracy to smuggle illegal aliens from China into the United States in exchange for payments of up to $38,000 each.

The three arranged for 18 people to be transported inside a shipping container on the Cape May, with plans to take them to New York state, federal authorities said.

"The smugglers' conduct allegedly placed the lives of the 18 aliens in jeopardy and resulted in the death of one or more aliens," Diskin said in the statement.

Conspiracy and smuggling counts both carry a minimum sentence of life imprisonment, a fine of up to $250,000, and a period of supervised release of up to five years.

The incident was the deadliest of several incidents over several months in which smugglers used cargo containers in an effort to smuggle Chinese nationals into various West Coast ports.