When Greek fugitive Apostolos Vavilis was arrested in April in Italy after a 10-week international manhunt, most people were likely not aware that Taiwan's police played a crucial role in the operation leading to his arrest.
In late February, George Vanikiotis, Greece's representative to Interpol, requested that the nation's police forces assist in tracing Vavilis, according to the International Criminal Affairs Section of the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB).
A key figure in a string of scandals involving the Orthodox Church of Greece, Vavilis was believed to have fled to Taiwan or another country with the help of his Taiwanese friends.
Based on information provided by Greek police, the CIB discovered that Vavilis had departed for Thailand and had made hundreds of flight reservations to try to shake off police.
The CIB was told that Vavilis maintained close links with the church and political communities in Greece, Europe and the Middle East, and used at least six different identities.
After analyzing the flight information, the CIB concluded that Vavilis could have headed for Rome via Bangkok and Athens using the alias Antonios Aivaliotis, and passed the information to Greek police.
Greek police later spotted him in Italy by monitoring his e-mail and credit card use, and he was arrested in the Italian city of Bologna on April 22, holding a fake Greek passport under the name of Antonios Aivaliotis.
The incident marked the first time the nation's police have taken part in a joint operation launched by Interpol, and the Greek and Italian authorities. It was also its first participation in the hunt for a criminal wanted by the European Police Office.
TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT: A US Air Force KC-135 tanker came less than 1,000 feet of an EVA plane and was warned off by a Taipei air traffic controller, a report said A US aerial refueling aircraft came very close to an EVA Airways jet in the airspace over southern Taiwan, a military aviation news Web site said. A report published by Alert 5 on Tuesday said that automatic dependent surveillance–broadcast (ADS-B) data captured by planfinder.net on Wednesday last week showed a US Air Force KC-135 tanker “coming less than 1,000 feet [305m] vertically with EVA Air flight BR225 as both aircraft crossed path south of Taiwan” that morning. The report included an audio recording of a female controller from the Taipei air traffic control center telling the unidentified aircraft that it was
A series of discussions on the legacy of martial law and authoritarianism are to be held at the Taipei International Book Exhibition this month, featuring findings and analysis by the Transitional Justice Commission. The commission and publisher Book Republic organized the series, entitled “Escaping the Nation’s Labyrinth of Memory: What Authoritarian Symbols and Records Can Tell Us,” to help people navigate narratives through textual analysis and comparisons with other nations. The four-day series is to begin on Thursday next week with a discussion between commission Chairwoman Yang Tsui (楊翠), Polish-language translator Lin Wei-yun (林蔚昀), and Polish author and artist Pawel Gorecki comparing
MOVING OUT: A former professor said that rent and early education costs in Taipei are the nation’s highest, which makes it difficult for young people to start families The population of Taipei last year fell to the lowest in 23 years due to high rent, more transportation options and the expansion of northern cities into a single metropolis, academics and city officials said on Monday. Data released this month by the Ministry of the Interior showed that the capital was home to 2,602,418 people last year, down 42,623 from 2019. The decline is second only to 1993, when the population fell by 42,828 people, while Taipei’s population was the lowest it has been since 1997. Taipei saw the biggest drop among the six special municipalities, while Taoyuan led the group in
A US aircraft carrier group led by the USS Theodore Roosevelt has entered the South China Sea to promote “freedom of the seas,” the US military said yesterday, as tensions between China and Taiwan raise concerns in Washington. US Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement that the strike group entered the South China Sea on Saturday, the same day Taiwan reported a large incursion of Chinese bombers and fighter jets into its air defense identification zone near the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島). The US military said the carrier strike group was in the South China Sea, a large part of which
RSS