Authorities arrested a couple after raiding a home where illegal drugs were being manufactured, while a man carrying amphetamines on a flight to Penghu was detained in a separate incident, Criminal Investigation Bureau officials said yesterday.
Authorities raided a residence at a building in Taipei’s Daan District (大安) last week and found narcotics mixed with coffee powder, known locally as “narcotic coffee,” along with other illegal drugs, the bureau said.
It took a week for tests of the substances to be completed, it said.
Photo: CNA
Officials arrested a husband and wife — a 27-year-old man surnamed Fang (房) and a 31-year-old woman surnamed Ma (馬), it said.
Huang Wen-tsun (黃文圳), squadron leader of the bureau’s Third Investigation Corps, said that investigators seized 118 pouches of narcotic coffee, 20 packages of jelly candy containing narcotics, and varying amounts of Erimin, ketamine and cannabis substances during the raid.
“Background checks indicate that Fang is a member of the Bamboo Union,” Huang said.
“The couple used their home as an assembly and packaging center for the illegal drugs, as well as a distribution center, where people came to buy the drugs,” Huang said.
Fang is to be charged for breaches of the Narcotics Hazard Prevention Act (毒品危害防制條例), while the investigation continues to verify his wife’s role in the illegal trade of narcotics, Huang said.
Huang said other evidence seized included machinery for grinding and mixing narcotics, scales, and packaging and labeling devices.
In a separate case, aviation police at Tainan Airport said they stopped a 28-year-old man going through a security check and found 53 pouches of drugs taped to his chest.
Preliminary tests at the airport showed the packages contained 516g of amphetamines, police said.
Police said that the suspect was likely trafficking drugs between Tainan and the outlying islands.
The man denied he was trafficking drugs, saying he was going to Penghu for a five-day tour and that he bought the drugs, which cost NT$10,000 (US$324), for personal use, police said.
In Taitung County on Wednesday, police said they raided a suspected cannabis plantation operated by two local residents.
Taitung prosecutors said it was one of the biggest cannabis plantation in the nation, with 794 plants up to 2m tall grown on 0.4 hectares of land, with an estimated street value of NT$230 million.
One of the two suspects, a man surnamed Chang (張), was quoted as saying that he rented the land from its owner six months ago and that the plants had grown up to 2m tall with just four months of cultivation.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai