Police yesterday said they are targeting weapons dealers and homemade firearms manufacturers, as officers assigned to both the March 19 shooting investigation and the search for fugitives Chang Hsi-ming (
Police are investigating people with access or connections to homemade 8mm and 9mm pistols or bullets in relation to the shooting of the president and the vice president. These were the two kinds of bullets used in the March 19 incident.
Related to the search for the outlows Chang and Chen, who are wanted after a gun battle in Tainan County in July, police recently identified a weapons dealer who allegedly provided weapons -- believed to include pistols, rifles and even grenades -- to the pair.
"By focusing on manufacturers and dealers, it will save us a lot of time investigating these two cases," said Tsai Hsiang-chun (蔡祥春), head of the Criminal Investigation Section of the Ta-an Precinct under the Taipei City Police Department.
To locate and arrest Chang and Chen, the National Police Agency's Criminal Investigation Bureau Secretary-General Frank Chiu (
Tsai just joined the team as he was recently promoted. He will become the new deputy detective of the Fourth Division next month.
"We have located a gun dealer and he allegedly helped Chang and Chen with weapons," Tsai said.
"We are waiting to collect more evidence before we bring this guy downtown."
According to the precinct, Tsai was promoted and invited to join the team because of his experience investigating complicated criminal cases.
In addition to many kidnapping cases, he was the lead officer in the Chu Mei-feng (璩美鳳) sex-VCD case, as well as the sex case of former Chinese Nationalist Party lawmaker Huang Hsien-chou (
In the meantime, the precinct also arrested Chang Ching-cheng (
Tsai said postal workers noted that the parts were "weird" when the package went through the X-ray machine, so they notified police immediately.
Police officers arrived at Chang Ching-cheng's residence with the postal worker and arrested him when he signed for the package.
Chang Ching-cheng told police he bought the pistol parts from Ebay web sites in the US and Germany and paid for them in US dollars. He said he was simply curious and ordered the parts to see if he could assemble them.
Police said a 9mm pistol can cost approximately NT$200,000 if bought illegally, but that Chang Ching-cheng had only spent approximately NT$10,000 for the parts.
"Mail order through the Internet will become a big [loop]hole for us when it comes to illegal weapons," Tsai said.
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
NUMBERS IMBALANCE: More than 4 million Taiwanese have visited China this year, while only about half a million Chinese have visited here Beijing has yet to respond to Taiwan’s requests for negotiation over matters related to the recovery of cross-strait tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. Taiwan’s tourism authority issued the statement after Chinese-language daily the China Times reported yesterday that the government’s policy of banning group tours to China does not stop Taiwanese from visiting the country. As of October, more than 4.2 million had traveled to China this year, exceeding last year. Beijing estimated the number of Taiwanese tourists in China could reach 4.5 million this year. By contrast, only 500,000 Chinese tourists are expected in Taiwan, the report said. The report
Temperatures are forecast to drop steadily as a continental cold air mass moves across Taiwan, with some areas also likely to see heavy rainfall, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. From today through early tomorrow, a cold air mass would keep temperatures low across central and northern Taiwan, and the eastern half of Taiwan proper, with isolated brief showers forecast along Keelung’s north coast, Taipei and New Taipei City’s mountainous areas and eastern Taiwan, it said. Lows of 11°C to 15°C are forecast in central and northern Taiwan, Yilan County, and the outlying Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties, and 14°C to 17°C
STEERING FAILURE: The first boat of its class is experiencing teething issues as it readies for acceptance by the navy, according to a recent story about rudder failure The Hai Kun (海鯤), the nation’s first locally built submarine, allegedly suffered a total failure of stern hydraulic systems during the second round of sea acceptance trials on June 26, and sailors were forced to manually operate the X-rudder to turn the submarine and return to port, news Web site Mirror Daily reported yesterday. The report said that tugboats following the Hai Kun assisted the submarine in avoiding collisions with other ships due to the X-rudder malfunctioning. At the time of the report, the submarine had completed its trials and was scheduled to begin diving and surfacing tests in shallow areas. The X-rudder,
RSS