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Police raid frees women, busts Chinese crime ring

Police arrested five illegal Chinese immigrants Wednesday night. The group had kidnapped two groups of Chinese women that were married to Taiwanese nationals.

"Five of the six kidnappers are Chinese, and another is Taiwanese. They allegedly raped the Chinese women and took pictures of them naked," said Chuang Jung-sung (莊榮松), spokesman for Pingtung Prosecutors' Office yesterday.

Police said they raided a house in Taipei County Wednesday night, fired eight gunshots, arrested six suspects, and rescued three kidnapped women.

Police said that in the first case, four Chinese women who were married to Taiwanese men and illegally worked in a hostess bar in Pingtung County. Police suspected that prostitution took place at the bar.

On April 3, the four women were allegedly invited by customers to take them to the Spring Scream music festival in Kenting National Park, but instead they were held prisoner in a house in Kaohsiung County.

According to the police, the kidnappers called the four women's families in China, demanding that they deposit either 150,000, 170,000 or 270,000 yuan ransom into a Chinese bank.

After a total of NT$4 million was paid, the four Chinese women were released on April 7, police said.

The women reported the case to the police. Because the women said the kidnappers had different accents, police assessed that they were a combination of Chinese illegal immigrants and Taiwanese.

Police said that the kidnappers took advantage of the fact that Chinese women working illegally in Taiwan or engaged in prostitution do not usually dare to report a crime to the police.

Police brought the four women to the neighborhood where they had been held, and found that a camera in the street had recorded the car's license plate number.

Police found out it was a rental car, and figured that the renter was likely to be still using the car to commit other crimes.

Police finally identified the kidnappers of another group of Chinese women in Taipei County, and launched a raid on Wednesday night.

Police said that two Chinese men admitted they were immigrants, but three had claimed they had legally entered the country.

Police found out that the five were all stowaways, and that some of them had acquired fake Taiwan IDs.

The Taiwanese suspect, named Wu Ming-sung (吳明訊), said he was in charge of guarding the three women, while the Chinese men had kidnapped the Chinese women.

Police said it was a cross-strait criminal group. The ransom was collected by a Chinese national in China, who then sent the money to Taiwan.

Police said the three kidnapped women worked in a hostess bar in Taipei County. Two of them were Chinese women who were married to Taiwanese, and one was Taiwanese.

Police said that the kidnappers lied to them and said they were taking them out to a late night snack, but imprisoned them instead. The seven women told police that they were raped and that kidnappers had taken pictures of the women naked.

Police have identified a main Taiwanese suspect surnamed Yan who used a fake ID to rent a car and a house. The kidnapped Chinese women will be deported from Taiwan, police added.
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