Police from Taipei's Criminal Investigation Bureau (刑事局) announced yesterday they had raided Taiwan's first-known ecstasy factory, the latest indication that drug use among teenagers is on the rise, the local media reported.
According to police, Huang Chien-shou (
Police said equipment and materials used to make ecstasy, along with a sizable amount of amphetamines and marijuana, were found on Thursday during their search of the factory, located in Taipei's Chungshan District (中山區).
Huang was later arrested at CKS International Airport upon his return from alleged drug-making lessons in Singapore. The other two suspects were arrested while picking him up at the airport.
"The equipment and contraband found at the factory are worth more than NT$4 million," police said yesterday.
"If the pills sold by the suspects in the past two months are included, the total amount could exceed NT$12 million," police added.
The police also stressed that the suspects added heroin to the ecstasy in order to make the pills more addictive.
"These pills are extremely dangerous for youngsters because they are more likely to become addicted to the heroin-ecstasy combination," police said.
Huang later confessed to police that he started his drug-smuggling business in April last year after he met some members of an international drug-smuggling ring based in Singapore.
He said they taught him how to make ecstasy pills while he was visiting the city-state.
In January of this year, Huang took advantage of imperfections in Vietnam's customs inspection system to import all of the equipment and materials he needed from Singapore to Vietnam, and eventually to Taiwan, police said.
Meanwhile, according to local media, police of the Ta-an Police Precinct (
This comes after recent government promises to crackdown on the growing use of ecstasy among Taiwan's youth.
All of the customers denied using drugs, prompting the police to take all 138 of them, including four foreigners, to the police station for further questioning and drug tests.
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