Taiwan's coast guard seized a Chinese ship equipped with suspected spy equipment three days before the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) began live-fire exercises near Kinmen, officials from the Coast Guard Administration said yesterday.
A coast guard patrol boat seized the motorized sailboat Yin Lu (
Police found aboard the ship eight ordinary cameras, one digital camera, one video camera, one tape recorder, three mobile phones and eight maps of Taiwan coastal waters.
They also found US, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Chinese currencies.
After developing the films, coast guard officials found that the Chinese aboard had taken more than 100 pictures of Taiwan's Penghu Islands including its harbor, airport, security checkpoints, guards, fuel depot and topography.
"The crew planned to make a voyage around Taiwan proper and their motives are suspicious," a coast guard announcement said.
The crew members denied being spies and said they were fishing. However, no fishing equipment or fish were found aboard the ship, registered in Pingtan (
The crew also seem to have given a variety of other explanations for their excursion.
"They claimed to be on a sightseeing trip," coast guard official Pa Yi-ning (
However, the China Times reported that the five had told investigators they were on a trip to the disputed Tiaoyutai (
One of the five detained Chinese said that he had been asked to set out from Pingtan on an urgent mission and that he did not know the identities of the other four, according to the report.
The suspected spies were identified as Wang Tao (
The National Security Bureau is setting up a special task force to investigate the case. A number of government agencies, including the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau, the Coast Guard Administration and the National Police Administration will be cooperating in the task force.
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