Kaohsiung County police looking for signs of foul play

Kaohsiung County police launched an investigation yesterday to determine if any of its officers were involved in an imprisonment case in which three people were held in custody and tortured by loan shark gangsters for months.

Kaohsiung City police on Tuesday night saved the three victims and busted loan shark gangster Chang Chin-tai (張進泰) and his wife on suspicion of imprisoning and torturing three defaulting customers over a 270-day period.

Chang and his wife, Huang Hsiu-li (黃秀麗), ran a small shop outside Fengshan (鳳山) selling betel nut and soft drinks.

tea breaks

Chinese-language newspapers the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times' sister paper) and the China Times reported yesterday that some Fengshan police officers were familiar with Chang and often stopped by his shop, located about 500m from Fengshan police station, to have tea with Chang.

The reports said that as various illegal businesses were involved with suspected gangsters around the Fengshan Railway Station and as Chang knew many people in that area, he had offered police some information relating to criminal cases they were probing.

Kaohsiung County police were embarrassed when the captives were rescued by Kaohsiung City police and it was suspected the bureau might have turned a blind eye on the case.

"We learned that some Fengshan police officers knew Chang and went to his shops on some occasions, but they told the authorities they did not know that individuals were held prisoner at the shop," Kaohsiung County Police Vice Commissioner Chen Tsiao-Long (陳朝龍) told reporters yesterday.

He said the bureau had formed a task force to probe the matter.

warning

Chen said that the family of the victims, surnamed Cho, twice reported -- in October and February -- to Chishan (旗山) police, Kaohsiung County, that the couple had gone missing and that in October the message "Cho return money" had been spray-painted on the couple's residence in Chishan.

Because the victims' family only reported the disappearance as a missing case rather than a possible kidnapping, Chen said Chishan police did nothing except list the couple in the nation's list of missing individuals.

prisoners

Police said that the couple owed Chang a total of NT$1.8 million (US$54,000), but were unable to make the payments.

The couple then fled but they were tracked down by Chang and his gangsters, who on Aug. 27 held them hostage in Chang's shop.

Another victim, surnamed Ou (歐), who owed Chang NT$1 million, was also held for the same reason, police said.

The two male victims were chained and forced to sit in their underpants while Cho's wife was held in the attic.

In addition to regular beatings, Chang provided them with just two meals a day and only allowed them to take a shower once a week. The conditions were appalling, police said.