The police yesterday denied an allegation that a senior police officer helped criminals Hsueh Chiu (
A Chinese-language newspaper yesterday reported that Hsueh and Chen, who were just escorted back to Taiwan from China last week, told reporters that they had worked with an unnamed senior police officer at the Tainan County Police Department while they were planning to kidnap a rich gambler in Tainan and ask for a NT$100 million ransom.
"This is ridiculous," said Kao Cheng-sheng (
"They have been detained separately and no visitors have been allowed since we escorted them back last week. How could it be possible for them to tell such a crazy story to reporters?"
According to the report, Hsueh and Chen allegedly made contact with the senior officer sometime in March last year. At the time, Hsueh and Chen were planning to kidnap the victim, identified by his last name, Lee, who earned lots of money through gambling in the Tainan area. According to the report, the officer, who was familiar with the victim, was suffering from serious financial problems, so he immediately agreed to help Hsueh and Chen with this kidnapping when they proposed it to him.
The story in the Chinese-language paper was headlined "Hsueh and Chen tried to buy the police -- just like in the Infernal Affairs movies," referring to the popular police series in which a criminal mole infiltrates the police force.
The kidnapping did not take place because many members of Hsueh and Chen's crime ring were arrested before they could carry out their plan.
Kao said that the alleged crooked police officer does not exist -- and he can guarantee that because a special task force on the crime ring has been watching them for the past three years and waiting for the best opportunity to arrest them all. Special task force members know exactly who Hsueh and Chen contacted during this period, Kao said.
"This is not the controversial Infernal Affairs," Kao said. "It's more like the heroic Police Story," Kao said, referring to the popular Jackie Chan movies.
According to Kao, the special task force, led by the bureau's Second Division Sergeant Hsiao Chin-chieh (
"They deserve our applause," Kao said about the task force. "It seems to me that the allegation is a disgrace and humiliation to them."
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