VLADIVOSTOK, Russia -- Inspector Alexander Torenko is in a philosophical frame of mind as he drives toward a staging point for a raid on a compound of warehouses and makeshift apartment rooms where Chinese illegal aliens live.

Everybody tries to find his place under the sun, says this official with the federal Department of Visas and Registration, and the Chinese tourists who stay on to work in the Russian Far East are simply trying to get by.

But as uniformed policemen and plainclothes inspectors muster at a crossroads a kilometer from where the raid will take place, he becomes more brittle in aspect, less sympathetic with those he will soon arrest.