A Taiwanese investigator who was probing a drug case in China last month was mistaken for a fraud suspect and held by local authorities for 25 days before he was allowed to leave China on Wednesday, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said yesterday.
Yang Ming-chang (陽明章), a senior investigator with the bureau’s International Criminal Affairs Division, was on vacation in Hong Kong on July 23 when an informant he had arranged to meet could not make it to the territory and asked if they could instead meet in Shenzhen, the Chinese-language China Times reported yesterday.
After meeting the informant for a meal in Shenzhen, Yang was confronted at his hotel by Chinese police the next day and taken away for interrogation.
The police thought Yang was a member of a fraud ring, because a Chinese man who was also present at the meal was under investigation for fraud, the newspaper said.
The bureau said it contacted Chinese authorities to assure them that Yang was investigating a case.
It said that he was not arrested, was allowed to speak with his family by telephone and had freedom of movement while he was being kept in China.
He had to stay in China for 25 days because the paperwork for his release took a long time to process, the bureau said.
It also said that Yang was given a minor demerit for not reporting to the bureau in advance that he was going to Shenzhen to meet with the informant.
Yang said he was treated well by Chinese authorities.
According to the China Times report, Yang had sent the intelligence that he gathered to his colleague after meeting with the informant, and Chinese authorities have expressed an interest in his intelligence and a joint investigation.
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