Taiwan Quick Take: PRC repatriates fugitives

Several fugitives wanted by authorities for alleged involvement in a spate of scams were repatriated from China to Kinmen yesterday, a spokesman for the Criminal Investigation Bureau said. The spokesman said the 11 fugitives were sent back from Mawei, Fujian Province, under the terms of the "Kinmen agreement" -- a set of crime-fighting mechanisms agreed upon by Taiwan and China in the early 1990s. It was the biggest repatriation of Taiwanese ever, with most of the suspects alleged to be masterminds behind various criminal fraud rings -- marking a departure from similar cases in which only "downstream" ciphers were detained, the spokesman said.