A Taiwanese man has admitted to smuggling PRC nationals into Taiwan to commit robbery and take what they stole back to China, Chinese-language media reported yesterday.
Kuo Chun-wei (
Kuo is believed to be a key figure behind two heists of computers and other electronic products last year.
Kuo said he hired the two men, Sun Jiuhua (孫九華) and Yang Fong (楊峰), to participate in the heists and to ship the loot back to China on a fishing boat.
The two are now in police custody in China on smuggling charges, according to officers from the Criminal Investigation Bureau. They have admitted to involvement in the robberies, police in China said.
The first robbery occurred on June 2, 1999, when four armed men stopped a container truck carrying more than 2,000 frequency converters worth NT$450,000 from General Instrument of Taiwan Ltd (
The second case occurred in the Wuku industrial district in Taipei County in October of the same year, when a truck carrying 700 notebook computers and other components from Clevo Computer Co (藍天電腦) was robbed, resulting in a loss of NT$20 million.
Police were able to link the two cases to a group behind an earlier robbery at an electronics company in Taoyuan County in 1998, but on that occasion Kuo and the rest of the suspects escaped to China.
Tsai Ming-tung (蔡明通), a Taiwanese fishing boat captain who helped the group smuggle their loot, has been arrested in China on smuggling charges. Taiwanese police officers said they hope to have Tsai repatriated soon.
* Kuo Chun-wei admits to hiring PRC nationals to commit robbery in Taiwan.
* The stolen property was loaded onto a Taiwanese fishing vessel and shipped to China for sale.
* The gang is believed responsible for two thefts that netted more than NT$20 million last year.
* Two members of the ring remain at large.
After each robbery, Kuo and his colleagues took the stolen goods to beaches at Chinshan or Yehliu and loaded them onto the boat, Kuo told police. The goods were later sold to buyers in China and Hong Kong, Kuo said.
The mastermind of the ring, Chun Tai-jan (凌泰然) and one of his cohorts are still on the loose in China.
Kuo was repatriated to Taiwan June 27 along with three other criminals arrested in China.
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