A South Korean man wanted in connection with the theft of property from the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) headquarters on Tuesday, who briefly managed to flee the country, was apprehended yesterday in Wulai District (烏來), New Taipei City police said.
After receiving tip-offs from members of the public, police tracked down Cho Jun-ki, 34, and his South Korean girlfriend to the Pause Landis Resort (樸石麗緻溫泉會館), but Cho fled the hotel.
A police search located Cho in a roadside hut about noon and he was taken to the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) for questioning.
Photo: Yao Yue-hung, Taipei Times
As he was escorted by police, Cho said: “Taiwan sorry.”
“The suspect is a wanted criminal; Interpol issued a red alert for him. He has been involved in more than 20 theft cases in South Korea and is a suspect of several thefts in Thailand, Macau and the Philippines,” Deputy CIB Chief Huang Ming-chao (黃明昭) said.
“It has been a successful operation. The tip-offs we received from the public and assistance from media outlets enabled us to narrow the search down to a small area,” he said.
A CIB team coordinated with local police to close off roads and hiking trails into the mountains around Wulai after receiving reports that a man fitting Cho’s description had been seen in the area, he said.
The bureau said Cho entered Taiwan on Monday last week on a tourist visa, arriving on a flight from Thailand, and took a room at the W Hotel in Taipei.
He allegedly entered the DPP’s headquarters early on Tuesday and took NT$90,000 and possibly other items.
As of press time last night, Cho was still being questioned by investigators, who want to know if he had any Taiwanese accomplices, if he carried out other thefts while in Taiwan, if he took any classified materials from the DPP office and whether he was acting on instructions from people or groups in Taiwan or another nation.
While the DPP issued a statement on Tuesday that said only money had been taken in the robbery, and that no files or equipment were touched, there are concerns that national security might have been compromised, as President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), as DPP chair, often holds meetings and consultations at the DPP’s offices.
Investigators said Cho had told them that he acted alone and the theft was not politically motivated.
“I just chose a big commercial building. It was a spur of the moment thing. I did not know it was the headquarters of Taiwan’s ruling party,” investigators quoted him as saying.
Questions have also been raised about National Immigration Agency procedures and security at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport because Cho on Tuesday left Taiwan on a Tigerair flight to Japan, but Japanese authorities refused him entry because he did not have a valid South Korean passport and he was put on a return fligh to Taiwan.
Despite the lack of a valid South Korean passport and being on Interpol’s red alert list, he was able to re-renter Taiwan.
Investigators believe that he might have been able to evade immigration procedures upon his return by going through an unguarded desk, or by jumping from the customs control floor to the ground floor.
LONG FLIGHT: The jets would be flown by US pilots, with Taiwanese copilots in the two-seat F-16D variant to help familiarize them with the aircraft, the source said The US is expected to fly 10 Lockheed Martin F-16C/D Block 70/72 jets to Taiwan over the coming months to fulfill a long-awaited order of 66 aircraft, a defense official said yesterday. Word that the first batch of the jets would be delivered soon was welcome news to Taiwan, which has become concerned about delays in the delivery of US arms amid rising military tensions with China. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said the initial tranche of the nation’s F-16s are rolling off assembly lines in the US and would be flown under their own power to Taiwan by way
‘OF COURSE A COUNTRY’: The president outlined that Taiwan has all the necessary features of a nation, including citizens, land, government and sovereignty President William Lai (賴清德) discussed the meaning of “nation” during a speech in New Taipei City last night, emphasizing that Taiwan is a country as he condemned China’s misinterpretation of UN Resolution 2758. The speech was the first in a series of 10 that Lai is scheduled to give across Taiwan. It is the responsibility of Taiwanese citizens to stand united to defend their national sovereignty, democracy, liberty, way of life and the future of the next generation, Lai said. This is the most important legacy the people of this era could pass on to future generations, he said. Lai went on to discuss
MISSION: The Indo-Pacific region is ‘the priority theater,’ where the task of deterrence extends across the entire region, including Taiwan, the US Pacific Fleet commander said The US Navy’s “mission of deterrence” in the Indo-Pacific theater applies to Taiwan, Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Stephen Koehler told the South China Sea Conference on Tuesday. The conference, organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), is an international platform for senior officials and experts from countries with security interests in the region. “The Pacific Fleet’s mission is to deter aggression across the Western Pacific, together with our allies and partners, and to prevail in combat if necessary, Koehler said in the event’s keynote speech. “That mission of deterrence applies regionwide — including the South China Sea and Taiwan,” he
UNPRECEDENTED: In addition to the approved recall motions, cases such as Ma Wen-chun’s in Nantou are still under review, while others lack enough signatures The Central Election Commission (CEC) announced yesterday that a recall vote would take place on July 26, after it approved the first batch of recall motions targeting 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers and Hsinchu Mayor Ann Kao (高虹安). Taiwan is in the midst of an unprecedented wave of mass recall campaigns, following a civil society push that echoed a call made by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) in January to initiate signature drives aimed at unseating KMT legislators. Under the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法), Taiwanese can initiate a recall of district-elected lawmakers by collecting
RSS