The seven people aboard Taiwanese fishing boat Jin Jin He Fa 2 safely returned to Penghu County after being robbed by a Chinese boat, the Coast Guard Administration said yesterday.
Penghu deputy head coast guard Lin Chih-ming (林志明) said that nearly NT$200,000 on the boat was looted.
At about noon on Thursday, three people armed with knives attacked the boat and threw objects to break into the pilothouse, Lin said.
They took money from the pilothouse while the captain was inside, Lin quoted the fishermen as saying.
The boat, which left the county at 9pm on Tuesday, returned to Magong Port (馬公港) at 2am yesterday.
After the attack, the captain called his family, who reported the incident to the coast guard.
In response, the administration sent three patrol ships from its stations in Penghu and Tainan, which at one point fired 10 shotgun shells in an attempt to catch the suspected robbers. However, the efforts failed as the boat was only 12 nautical miles (22.2km) off the Chinese coast.
The coast guard has invoked the Cross-Strait Joint Crime-Fighting and Judicial Mutual Assistance Agreement (海峽兩岸共同打擊犯罪及司法互助協議), which was signed by Taiwan and China in 2009, in a bid to continue investigations.
According to Chinese police, 14 suspects and their boat were detained on Friday near Shantou City in southern China.
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