■Crime
Hitman nabbed at airport
One of the nation's most wanted criminals was arrested at CKS International Airport early yesterday, police said. Tseng Ying-chin (曾盈進), who is accused of involvement in a spate of murders, extortion and vandalism, was nabbed at the airport upon his return from Cambodia shortly after midnight. According to police, Tseng was a hit man trained by the notorious local underworld ring Tientaomeng, also known as the Heavenly Way. The 30-year-old gangster fled the country after having allegedly led a group to vandalize the office of a local magazine last year. Police said they were tipped off recently that Tseng might return to resurrect the Tientaomeng after several of the ring's leaders, including Wu Tung-tan, were imprisoned early this year. Police have been monitoring local sea ports and airports over the past week. Police said Tientaomeng trained a group of young hit men in Cambodia in the 1990s.
■ Crime
Man nabbed for fraud
A man accused of stealing credit-card numbers and running up huge bills on counterfeit cards was repatriated from Indonesia yesterday, police said. Chen Wei-chih (陳威至), who is accused of having used bogus credit cards to make large purchases in Taiwan, Southeast Asia and China, was arrested in Jakarta last month while he was leaving for Bangkok. Chen Wei-chih and his accomplice Chen Chih-hsiung (陳志雄) were first arrested in Indonesia in March. Chen Wei-chih managed to escape while Indonesian police were sending him to the Indonesian immigration office. Chen Chih-hsiung was brought back to Taiwan in late March. With the assistance of Taiwan's representative office in Indonesia, police were able to recapture Chen Wei-chih. Initial investigations show that the two men had used credit-card numbers stolen from a Taiwanese financial institution. Police said they are investigating how the men managed to secure valid credit card numbers.
■ Miltary
Chinook squadron lifts off
The military yesterday formed its first squadron of US-made Chinook CH-47SD helicopters to boost its army transport and war-support capabilities. According to reports, Taipei paid more than NT$1 billion (US$29 million) for each of the nine CH-47SDs. Built by the Boeing Co, the CH-47SD (Super D) is hailed as the world's most efficient heavy-lift helicopter. The twin-turbine, tandem-rotor transport can carry 24,500kg and seats 33 passengers. The choppers are used for medical evacuations, aircraft recovery, parachute drops, heavy construction, disaster relief and search and rescue.
■ Miltary
Three injured in accident
An army officer and two enlisted men were injured in an accident during a training exercise at a military base in southern Taiwan yesterday, the Army General Headquarters said yesterday. All three men were in a stable condition after receiving medical treatment at a hospital near the combined services training base at Hengchun, in the island's southernmost county of Pingtung, the press statement said. Brain and chest X-ray checks showed that the trio -- Yeh Wei-pei (葉韋霈), a company leader, and privates Chen Hung-chang (陳鴻昌) and Hung Chih-yuan (洪致遠) -- did not sustain critical injuries. According to the AGH, the accident occurred when an armored vehicle veered onto a slope and overturned after its brakes failed.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
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POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the