Officials from the nation’s top police, prosecution and investigation agencies yesterday held a joint press conference as a symbol of their determination to fight crime after a series of daytime gunfights in Taichung City, including the killing of an alleged gangster who was shot dead in the presence of four city police officers who failed to intervene.
The officials pledged to crack down all gang-related activities within three months’ time.
“We need to make a difference in this three-month operation,” State Public Prosecutor General Huang Shih-ming (黃世銘) said at a press conference he held alongside Minister of the Interior Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺), National Police Agency (NPA) Director-General Wang Cho-chiun (王卓鈞), Taiwan High Court Prosecutor General Yen Da-ho (顏大和), Bureau of Investigation Director-General Wu Ying (吳瑛) and Military Police Commander Lee Hsiang-chou (李翔宙).
PHOTO: CNA
Jiang said the new initiative, code-named “Operation Thunder” (霹靂專案), followed President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) directive on Wednesday that the ministry and the NPA had a month to produce visible results in the fight against crime and to institute better discipline in the police force.
Cracking down on gangs and their members and conducting random raids against potential criminals would be priorities for officers deployed for the operation, the officials said.
“We will also crack down on officers who accept bribes from gangsters or who work with them,” Huang said.
Meanwhile, at a separate setting yesterday, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wong Chin-chu (翁金珠) called for the creation of an anti-corruption bureau following recent allegations of ties between police and organized crime in Taichung City.
Taichung Police Commissioner Hu Mu-yuan (胡木源) resigned last week amid reports that a number of police officers were playing mahjong and drinking tea with mobsters at the time of alleged gang leader Weng Chi-nan’s (翁奇楠) murder.
Dozens of armed officers from the National Police Agency’s elite Wei-An Special Police Commando unit arrived in the city last week to help maintain public order.
These incidents show the need for an agency capable of investigating “black and white” ties, Wong said, referring to relations between public officials and organized crime figures.
The new bureau should be modeled after Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC), she said. The ICAC, created in 1974, says that it employs a “three-pronged approach of law enforcement, prevention and community education to fight corruption.”
Wong said she hoped her proposal would be discussed at a provisional legislative session, which could take place later this month after Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) asked for such a session to review the proposed economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) the government wants to sign with China.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lu Hsueh-chang (呂學樟) said the need to establish such an organization might be redundant as corruption cases fall under the remit of the justice ministry’s Investigation Bureau and Department of Government Ethics.
“The current administrative division can already deal with [corruption] cases,” Lu said, calling Wong’s proposal an election ploy.
KMT Legislator Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇), head of the legislature’s Internal Administration Committee, said lawmakers should spend more time resolving the issues instead of pushing through hastily cobbled together bills at a provisional legislative session.
Wong said the KMT lawmakers’s opposition runs directly counter to Ma’s election pledge to create an anti-corruption committee in 2008.
That committee fell apart after meeting only twice in October 2008 and April last year. No substantive proposals came from those two meetings, she said.
Meanwhile, the DPP said Ma’s comments on Wednesday on the success of cross-strait law enforcement efforts run counter to falling public confidence in social order in Taiwan
“The president thinks that he can correct Taiwan’s public safety issues through China — it’s all he thinks about,” DPP spokesperson Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌) said. “But since he was elected in 2008, just how many high-profile criminals have been extradited from China back to Taiwan?”
The DPP also accused both Ma and Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強) of washing their hands of criminal activities in that city, accusing them of using the local police as scapegoat.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY FLORA WANG
AIR DEFENSE: The Norwegian missile system has proved highly effective in Ukraine in its war against Russia, and the US has recommended it for Taiwan, an expert said The Norwegian Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) Taiwan ordered from the US would be installed in strategically important positions in Taipei and New Taipei City to guard the region, the Ministry of National Defense said in statement yesterday. The air defense system would be deployed in Taipei’s Songshan District (松山) and New Taipei City’s Tamsui District (淡水), the ministry said, adding that the systems could be delivered as soon as the end of this year. The US Defense Security Cooperation Agency has previously said that three NASAMS would be sold to Taiwan. The weapons are part of the 17th US arms sale to
INSURRECTION: The NSB said it found evidence the CCP was seeking snipers in Taiwan to target members of the military and foreign organizations in the event of an invasion The number of Chinese spies prosecuted in Taiwan has grown threefold over a four-year period, the National Security Bureau (NSB) said in a report released yesterday. In 2021 and 2022, 16 and 10 spies were prosecuted respectively, but that number grew to 64 last year, it said, adding that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was working with gangs in Taiwan to develop a network of armed spies. Spies in Taiwan have on behalf of the CCP used a variety of channels and methods to infiltrate all sectors of the country, and recruited Taiwanese to cooperate in developing organizations and obtaining sensitive information
BREAKTHROUGH: The US is making chips on par in yield and quality with Taiwan, despite people saying that it could not happen, the official said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has begun producing advanced 4-nanometer (nm) chips for US customers in Arizona, US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said, a milestone in the semiconductor efforts of the administration of US President Joe Biden. In November last year, the commerce department finalized a US$6.6 billion grant to TSMC’s US unit for semiconductor production in Phoenix, Arizona. “For the first time ever in our country’s history, we are making leading edge 4-nanometer chips on American soil, American workers — on par in yield and quality with Taiwan,” Raimondo said, adding that production had begun in recent
Seven hundred and sixty-four foreigners were arrested last year for acting as money mules for criminals, with many entering Taiwan on a tourist visa for all-expenses-paid trips, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said on Saturday. Although from Jan. 1 to Dec. 26 last year, 26,478 people were arrested for working as money mules, the bureau said it was particularly concerned about those entering the country as tourists or migrant workers who help criminals and scammers pick up or transfer illegally obtained money. In a report, officials divided the money mules into two groups, the first of which are foreigners, mainly from Malaysia
RSS