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Shih calls for crackdown on Kinmen, Matsu

Law enforcement authorities should step up their crackdown on contraband smuggling via the islands of Kinmen and Matsu, both of which lie closer to China's Fujian Province than to Taiwan, Minister of Justice Morley Shih (施茂林) said yesterday.

Shih said that many Kinmen and Matsu fishermen had been involved in illegal small-scale trade in daily necessities, raw materials, contraband goods and firearms across the Taiwan Strait.

Smuggling via the two islands had become so rampant that locals tended to refer to their fishing vessels as part of the "North Sea Fleet," he added.

Over the past six years, only 82 cargo transshipments in the Kinmen-Matsu area had been reported for customs clearance, indicating that most of the area's cargo imports and exports had not been processed by customs authorities, Shih continued.

Shih said he had asked Minister of Finance Ho Chih-chin (何志欽) to probe possible tax evasion related to the phenomenon.

In recent years, contraband drugs had also been seized in Kinmen on many occasions, Shih added.
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