By Susannah Price in Colombo

Sri Lanka's international airport is the starting point for the country's growing trade in smuggling out would-be illegal immigrants.

Here they mingle with businessmen and tourists, some clutching false documents, others rehearsing plans to meet their agents at the next stop.

Twenty-six year old Siva was so desperate to work that he paid an agent his entire savings for a fake visa and ticket via Bahrain to Australia.

"What can I do here? I would like job in Sri Lanka but I cannot work here," Siva said.

"Foreign countries are very free, there I can choose almost any course but here I can't study," he said.

Siva was caught, deported and lost his money.

Agents like his are connected to international smuggling rings.

They can arrange tickets and visas to Canada via the United States or to the United Kingdom for around $10,000, or to Australia or Africa.

Many go via Singapore or Eastern Europe. Others travel by sea from Indonesia to Australia or come through South America to Canada.

Forged passports

The Sri Lankan Government, the target countries and the airlines all work closely together to trace the immigrants before they go.

Staff at check-in counters will call embassy staff if they are suspicious about visas and those who are caught are handed to the police.

Airlines are fined for taking bogus travellers.

But according to Walter Riggans at Sri Lankan Airlines, it is sometimes almost impossible to detect the forgeries.

"Our staff would check a passenger's passport but there are some routes where we are extra cautious," Mr Riggans said.

"It's fairly difficult because some of the forgeries are very good and we have had instances where actual visas have been stolen from embassies around the world and have ended up here to be put into passports," he said.

There is the added problem of these agents trying to bribe or threaten staff both in the airlines and immigration department.

Agents watch their clients checking in at the airport and give then instructions over mobile phone.

Tamil refugees

The government hopes that increased prison sentences and large fines will be a deterrent.

Anyone who is deported is supposed to serve at least one year in prison but it is rarely imposed.

Many who want to leave Sri Lanka go for economic reasons.

But human rights lawyers say that a large proportion, especially from the minority Tamil community, are genuine refugees from the war between the government and Tamil Tiger rebels.

Maheswary Velautham of Forum for Human Dignity says nothing will deter those determined to go.

"Even when people were imprisoned they kept on going," she said.

"One third of Sri Lanka's Tamil population is in foreign countries and people keep on going out," Ms Velautham said.

Legal route

The foreign missions in Colombo put their efforts to combat the trade into monitoring false visas and passports.

The Canadian High Commissioner in Colombo, Ruth Archibald, says some Sri Lankans automatically take the illegal route without realising that they might be legally eligible to go to Canada.

"Well if you take the Canadian case, we issue every year about 3000 visas to immigrants, so there are a number of countries that have fairly open immigration policies," she said.

"It is also more expensive to be smuggled," she added.

But there are often complaints about the difficulty of getting visas.

Ms Velautham says most have no hope of getting a legal way out and have to go to agents.

"Tamils do not feel secure... and are scared to live in Sri Lanka. No European government is giving visas to Sri Lankans so how can they go?

"Refugees have been using illegal methods to reach the other country," she said.

Human smuggling from Sri Lanka is a huge business.

While the fighting continues and people are determined to leave, the profits of the smugglers will continue to grow.

And for the moment, at least, there is no convincing evidence that the government will be able to stop it.