More than three months after they attempted to enter Bermuda on false passports, the first of the four Chinese illegal immigrants was sent home on Thursday.

A Government spokesman said the other three would be flying out individually on Sunday, and next Thursday and Saturday. He said the delay in sending the four home had been because the Chinese Embassy in London had been slow in getting the travelling papers.

He added it was only possible to send them one at a time because they had to be accompanied by a Bermuda Immigration member until they boarded the plane to China. Zhang Fenzhen, 27, Zheng Minxiang, 22, Huang Zhen Yong, 22, and Hedong Sun, 38 had tried to go through Bermuda on forged Japanese passports in January to emigrate to America. They were part of an operation to smuggle people into the US through Europe and Bermuda rather than through the conventional Pacific Coast route.

The four were arrested after a tip off.