Authorities in Yunlin County on Saturday detained at least 68 people for questioning after a raid on a bar in Dounan Township (斗南) targeting illegal drugs.
The operation, involving more than 80 police officers, was conducted on Saturday night and as of yesterday afternoon, the people were still being processed, including to verify their identity and to conduct urinalysis testing for drugs, Yunlin police officials said.
Of those questioned, 54 were foreigners — almost all migrant workers from Vietnam — while others were Taiwanese patrons and workers at the bar, including a man surnamed Chen (陳), who reportedly owns the business, police said yesterday.
Those who are determined to have used illegal drugs would be charged with contravening the Narcotics Hazard Prevention Act (毒品危害防制條例), police said, adding that 1.18g of ketamine powder, nine ketamine cigarettes and 19 “narcotic coffee powder” pouches containing suspected illegal drugs were found.
Police said the premises had been put under surveillance after they received reports that the owner had been organizing drugs parties on weekends for Vietnamese workers at local factories.
The investigation focused on who was supplying the drugs and where the pouches were being produced, police said.
Elsewhere, Kaohsiung police searched a motel in Nanzih District (楠梓) on Friday night, where eight young people in adjacent rooms were allegedly found in possession of illegal drugs.
Acting on a tip-off, police raided the rooms, where six males and two females were staying, with a search allegedly revealing ketamine pills and opened narcotic coffee powder pouches.
The drugs were reportedly brought by two men, surnamed Hsu (徐), 23, and Weng (翁), 18, police said.
The other six were students in their late teens or early 20s, police said, adding that parents should be aware that during the summer holidays, young people might be lured to parties by friends where drugs might be available.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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