Police said Friday they have arrested a Ghanaian man on suspicion of arranging for 12 African people to enter South Korea illegally through a loophole in the country's refugee application system.

The Ghanaian broker, 46, has since December 2013 helped the illegal entry of two Ghanaians and 10 Nigerians in collusion with four South Korean business executives involved in exports, according to the International Crime Investigation Unit at the Seoul Police Agency. The 12 illegal entrants and the four South Koreans have been booked without physical detention.

The unidentified broker had the businesspeople send false invitations to the 12 so that they could come to South Korea on a C-3 visa, which allows foreigners to enter the country for tourism, transit, visiting relatives or similar reasons and to stay here for up to three months.

Around the time the C-3 visas expired, all 12 of them applied for refugee status to stay illegally. They took advantage of the law under which refugee status seekers are not forcibly deported for a period of three to five years, when their refugee applications are screened, police said.

The Ghanian broker coaxed the four businesspeople including freight forwarders into issuing the false invitations in return for giving them deals to ship freight for the 12 people's family members in their home countries, they said.

Police said they will investigate further into the case to see whether there are more people who came here illegally through the Ghanian's help as the four owned up to writing about 100 false invitations. (Yonhap)