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Thieves make off with 501 passports

Nearly 500 people were forced to cancel their travel plans yesterday after their passports were stolen by four men with pistols on Thursday night. The travel documents were being held at a Taipei travel agency

"A total of 501 passports were stolen. Among them were 482 passports belonging to customers scheduled to join our foreign package tours today [yesterday]. The customers were informed that their tours have been canceled," Chen Chen-hung (陳振宏), a representative of the Comfort Travel Service Co, told the press yesterday.

Lucky few

"But the remaining 19 passports belonged to people who signed up for a tour of Thailand next Tuesday. This can probably still go ahead because the company has asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to issue new passports," he added.

Chen said yesterday that the company would refund the tour expenses of the 482 people who had been scheduled to leave the country yesterday.

Chen said the company would lose NT$10 million (US$302,190) over the incident.

The victims of the passport heist were originally scheduled to travel to Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Singapore, Europe and Canada on 26 separate tours organized by the company over the Mid-Autumn Festival.

The company said another 1,000 people scheduled to participate in the tours, but whose passports had not been stolen, went on holiday as planned.

The travel agency is located at Nanjing E Rd, Sec 2.

A company employee surnamed Hsiao told police on Thursday that at 9:30pm two men with pistols wearing peak caps stole the 501 passports while he was transporting them from the company office. The two men jumped out of a car in front of him as he was waiting at the curb for a colleague.

Hsiao told police the two men threatened to kill him.

Police said there were four suspects altogether -- including two men in the car. They quickly left the crime scene once the passports were secured.

Police said they have discovered the car used by the suspects was a stolen vehicle.

`safe passage'

The travel agency told police that their staff were transporting the passports to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport to hand them over to an airline company for security overnight.

Police said yesterday they suspect staff from the travel agency may have been involved in the crime, because the thieves knew exactly when and where to conduct the heist.

Police also said yesterday they have reviewed video tape from surveillance monitors around the crime scene, but have so far not identified any suspects.

National Security Bureau Deputy Director Yang Kuo-chiang (楊國強) on Thursday told the legislature that the bureau was keeping track of Chinese nationals slipping into the country.

Yang's remarks suggest that there may be a link between the stolen passports and Chinese nationals illegally entering Taiwan.

Police said the stolen passports could be sold to illegal immigrants and stowaways already residing in Taiwan, including criminals on the police wanted list, to enable them to "legally" leave the country.

A Taiwanese passport can fetch up to NT$100,000 on the black market, police said.
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