Law enforcement officials on Saturday said they had captured Lin Hsiao-tao (林孝道), also known as the “King of Pingtung,” one of the three most wanted drug lords in Taiwan.
With Lin’s arrest last month and the dissolution of his alleged criminal ring, police said they expect the amount of illicit drugs being smuggled into the nation to decrease by one-third.
Lin allegedly operated a fleet of ships to smuggle heroin and opium into the nation from Southeast Asia, and ran an international drug-trafficking network that stretched from Taiwan to the “Golden Triangle” region, which borders Thailand, Myanmar and Laos, National Police Agency (NPA) officials said.
Photo: CNA
Investigators at a news conference in Taitung presented a five-minute video showing how police tracked down Lin, as well as footage of the raid on his residence.
NPA Director-General Chen Ja-chin (陳家欽) commended police and narcotic officers for capturing Lin and alleged members, his criminal group.
Taitung Prosecutors’ Office Chief Prosecutor Chang Hsiao-wen (張曉雯) said Lin and 11 other members of the ring were in custody.
Chen also displayed seized drugs — 296 bricks of heroin and 26kg of amphetamine — which he said had an estimated street value of NT$1.5 billion (US$49.92 million).
Lin, in his 50s, has allegedly been working with Southeast Asian drug rings for more than two decades and headed up a Taiwanese ring, which operated storage facilities and distribution channels throughout the region, Chen said.
Taitung County police and prosecutors launched an investigation after residents of Taitung’s Daren Township (達仁) on Sept. 20 last year found heroin bricks that had washed ashore.
Police combing the area found 32 bricks, while another 12 bricks were found washed ashore in Pingtung County’s Manjhou Township (滿洲).
Police gathered evidence and conducted surveillance, leading to the arrest of several suspected members of Lin’s drug ring, and eventually Lin’s arrest.
Police quoted Lin as saying during questioning that the drugs came from the “Golden Triangle,” as well as Pakistan and Colombia.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers have declared they survived recall votes to remove them from office today, although official results are still pending as the vote counting continues. Although final tallies from the Central Election Commission (CEC) are still pending, preliminary results indicate that the recall campaigns against all seven KMT lawmakers have fallen short. As of 6:10 pm, Taichung Legislators Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒) and Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔), Hsinchu County Legislator Lin Szu-ming (林思銘), Nantou County Legislator Ma Wen-chun (馬文君) and New Taipei City Legislator Lo Ming-tsai (羅明才) had all announced they
CHAMPIONS: President Lai congratulated the players’ outstanding performance, cheering them for marking a new milestone in the nation’s baseball history Taiwan on Sunday won their first Little League Baseball World Series (LLBWS) title in 29 years, as Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School defeated a team from Las Vegas 7-0 in the championship game in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It was Taiwan’s first championship in the annual tournament since 1996, ending a nearly three-decade drought. “It has been a very long time ... and we finally made it,” Taiwan manager Lai Min-nan (賴敏男) said after the game. Lai said he last managed a Dong Yuan team in at the South Williamsport in 2015, when they were eliminated after four games. “There is
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) yesterday visited Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), as the chipmaker prepares for volume production of Nvidia’s next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) chips. It was Huang’s third trip to Taiwan this year, indicating that Nvidia’s supply chain is deeply connected to Taiwan. Its partners also include packager Siliconware Precision Industries Co (矽品精密) and server makers Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and Quanta Computer Inc (廣達). “My main purpose is to visit TSMC,” Huang said yesterday. “As you know, we have next-generation architecture called Rubin. Rubin is very advanced. We have now taped out six brand new
POWER PLANT POLL: The TPP said the number of ‘yes’ votes showed that the energy policy should be corrected, and the KMT said the result was a win for the people’s voice The government does not rule out advanced nuclear energy generation if it meets the government’s three prerequisites, President William Lai (賴清德) said last night after the number of votes in favor of restarting a nuclear power plant outnumbered the “no” votes in a referendum yesterday. The referendum failed to pass, despite getting more “yes” votes, as the Referendum Act (公民投票法) states that the vote would only pass if the votes in favor account for more than one-fourth of the total number of eligible voters and outnumber the opposing votes. Yesterday’s referendum question was: “Do you agree that the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant
RSS