With more foreigners coming to Taiwan for work or tourism in recent years, the inflow has had a downside — an increase in the number of foreigners suspected of committing crime in the nation, the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said on Tuesday.
The number of criminal cases involving foreigners rose 28.9 percent year-on-year in the first 10 months of the year to 2,893, while the number of foreign crime suspects rose 29.5 percent to 2,694, the DGBAS said, citing statistics compiled by the National Police Agency.
The latest figures saw a rebound after dropping to a low of 2,002 criminal cases involving foreigners and 1,898 foreign suspects in 2014, the data showed.
Among the list of foreign crime suspects in the January-to-October period, 1,869 were foreign workers, up 42.9 percent from the same period last year and accounting for 69.4 percent of the total.
The other 825 fall under other categories of foreign residents.
In terms of nationality, 2,442 people, or 90.6 percent, were from Asian countries, while 122 came from North and South America, and 74 from Europe.
A majority of the Asian suspects were from Vietnam at 46.4 percent, the statistics showed.
As for the type of crime foreign suspects were involved in, 881, or 32.7 percent, were accused of offenses against public safety, mainly drunk driving. This was followed by 587, or 21.8 percent, suspected of drug offenses, and 414, or 15.4 percent, involved in theft.
Compared with the same period last year, the number of foreign suspects accused of offenses against public safety rose 65.9 percent, while the number of those involved in drug crimes grew 34.9 percent, data showed.
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