The boarding of a fishing vessel suspected of transporting contraband turned into the largest marine seizure of illegal drugs so far this year, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) has announced.
Labels on the packages containing 320kg of ketamine, shipped as tea leaves, had simplified Chinese characters, so the cargo is suspected to have originated in China, CGA Investigation Branch deputy chief Ruan Wen-chieh (阮文杰) said.
The boarding was conducted on Thursday last week at the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島), about 200 nautical miles (370km) southwest of Kaohsiung Port, Ruan added.
Photo: Hung Ting-hung, Taipei Times
Test results showed that the packages contained ketamine with an estimated street value of about NT$320 million (US$10.38 million), he said.
“Surveillance indicated that a criminal ring had plans to smuggle ketamine in a fishing vessel to try to make huge profits by selling ketamine pills to revellers at the Spring Scream music festival,” Ruan said.
The three-day music festival is to take place at the seaside park in Kaohsiung’s Cijin District (旗津) from May 3 to 5.
The 50-tonne Lai Shun Yi 333 fishing vessel was headed to rendezvous with a Chinese ship near the Pratas Islands, where the packages were loaded, as a 100-tonne CGA patrol cutter arrived in the area, and boarded and examined its cargo, he said.
Ruan quoted the fishing vessel’s captain, a 44-year-old man surnamed Hsu (許), as saying that someone had contacted him to transport cargo to Kaohsiung Port, and that he agreed to do so for payment of NT$6 million.
Hsu and a crew member surnamed Chou (周) face charges of breaching the Narcotics Hazard Prevention Act (毒品危害防制條例), although the investigation is ongoing to name other members of the alleged smuggling ring.
In related news, the Investigation Branch in Yilan County said they uncovered illegal Chinese cigarettes in eight containers at Keelung Port.
Saturday’s raid, conducted by the CGA and local police units, found about 3,600 boxes of cigarettes in the seized containers, CGA Investigation Branch deputy captain Lee Chin-an (李進安) said.
The cigarettes had an estimated street value of NT$210 million, he added.
Suspects apprehended in the case face charges of breaching the Tobacco and Alcohol Administration Act (菸酒管理法), Lee said.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS