Three additional Chinese immigrants were stopped and deported by immigration officers at Bermuda International Airport last year, Government revealed yesterday.

Immigration Permanent Secretary Robert Horton said the move was a sign that the stricter measures, brought in following breaches last year that allowed six people from China and Singapore onto the Island, were so far working.

Mr. Horton declined to discuss the nature of the more stringent procedures for fear of alerting would-be immigrants to how they might penetrate immigration.

But he said: ?They were put in place to ensure we would be more effective. We picked up these three people and we don?t believe that anyone else has gotten through. We are extremely vigilant.?

Mr. Horton said immigration officials stopped three Chinese nationals on November 25 after they arrived on the British Airways flight. They were found to have false Japanese passports and were put straight back on the same flight to London Gatwick that night.

?They were transported back at the airlines expense,? Mr. Horton said. ?We would have absorbed responsibility if we had landed them. When that happened before it cost this country a great deal of money. It was exorbitant.?

Government admitted last summer that Bermuda was seen as a ?soft target? for entry into the United States by would-be immigrants.

Taxpayers had to foot the bill for prison stays and return flights of the five Chinese nationals and one Singaporean who arrived last year. They were caught by United States immigration officers as they tried to travel to that country.