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Hong Kong and mainland Chinese authorities have arrested 78 suspects as part of a wider crackdown on illegal immigration into the city.

The Immigration Department on Friday said its officers and police arrested 52 suspects in an operation that spanned Tuesday and Wednesday, with authorities raiding more than 60 locations and intercepting 29 boats.

Law enforcement officers over the border in Guangdong province arrested 26 people between last Saturday and Friday for allegedly attempting to sneak into Hong Kong, including 10 suspected fixers.

Hong Kong police arrest 4 Pakistani nationals over entering city unlawfully

Among those arrested in Hong Kong were 12 people from Vietnam, four from Bangladesh and two from Pakistan. Three mainlanders were also detained, two of whom were suspected of helping others to enter Hong Kong illegally.

Officers seized one boat during the operation.

Authorities targeted illegal workers in the city, arresting six mainlanders and 18 others for breaching conditions of stay.

Four men and three women, aged 41 to 66, were taken into custody on suspicion of employing illegal workers.

The Immigration Department said it would continue to collaborate with police and other government bodies to combat illegal immigration.

Hong Kong police arrest 2 Indian nationals over illegal entry after ID check

Hong Kong and mainland authorities previously conducted a three-day cross-border operation, code-named Mungoshunt-3, in early November that led to the arrest of 127 people in the two-pronged attack targeting people smuggling.

Authorities in Guangdong on Friday said the recent rounds of arrests marked a significant decline from the 57 people they took into custody during the earlier operation.

Hong Kong authorities arrested 1,241 suspected illegal immigrants in the first 10 months of this year. A breakdown of the figure showed 968 were non-ethnic Chinese and 273 were from the mainland.

In comparison, 482 non-Chinese and 673 mainlanders were arrested last year.

Rise in flights behind illegal immigrant wave into Hong Kong: security chief

Secretary for Security Chris Tang Ping-keung recently told lawmakers that this years uptick could be attributed to increasingly convenient travel routes to the mainland and rumours inducing illegal immigrants to come to Hong Kong.

The minister earlier told the Post that many entrants hoped to claim non-refoulement protection, an assurance that asylum seekers will not be sent to a country where they may be persecuted or tortured.

While Tang had also said the government had a duty to process such claims in line with a high standard of fairness, he stressed that only about 1 per cent of applications had been approved since 2014.

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Hong Kong, mainland Chinese authorities team-up for crackdown on illegal immigration - South China Morning Post