More than 1,200 suspects have been arrested in the latest crackdown on gangsters and criminal activities, the National Police Agency (NPA) said yesterday.
In the past week through Sunday, the nationwide campaign targeting criminals engaged in kidnapping and extortion netted 1,254 arrests, NPA Directorate-General Huang Ming-chao (黃明昭) said.
The suspects were involved in 683 cases of fraud, money scams, loan-related violence and other criminal activities, with about NT$700 million (US$22.5 million) in cash and property assets frozen, he said.
Photo: Yao Yueh-hung, Taipei Times
While background checks are still under way, so far at least 13 cases and 49 suspects seem to have direct ties to Taiwan’s major criminal syndicates, including the Bamboo Union, the Four Seas Gang and the Heavenly Way Alliance, he said.
One of the suspects is a man surnamed Kuo (郭), who allegedly heads a criminal ring in northern Taiwan, police said, adding that they had apprehended eight suspected accomplices and rescued six people in Miaoli’s Tongluo District (銅鑼).
Hsueh Hsien-te (薛先得), captain of the Taipei Police Department’s criminal investigation division, said his unit began an investigation after a Taipei resident reported responding to an online advertisement promising high pay, only to be threatened, blindfolded, confined and beaten when he showed up for an interview.
The man said he was lucky because when the criminals tried to transfer money using his account, it issued an alert about unusual transactions.
The gangsters drove him to an area outside the Taiwan High-Speed Rail’s station in Taichung’s Wurih District (烏日), pushed him out of the car and sped away, the man told police.
The man also reported seeing other captives at the place where he was confined, prompting police to form a special task force to rescue the hostages, Hsueh said.
Police rescued six captives in Tongluo and seized account books and bank cards belonging to the victims, NT$264,300 in cash, drugs including heroin, amphetamine, ketamine and narcotic coffee-mix powder, along with plastic restraints, electroshock guns, air rifles, wooden clubs, blindfolds and other tools, Hsueh said.
DEMOGRAPHICS: Robotics is the most promising answer to looming labor woes, the long-term care system and national contingency response, an official said Taiwan is to launch a five-year plan to boost the robotics industry in a bid to address labor shortages stemming from a declining and aging population, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The government approved the initiative, dubbed the Smart Robotics Industry Promotion Plan, via executive order, senior officials told a post-Cabinet meeting news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s population decline would strain the economy and the nation’s ability to care for vulnerable and elderly people, said Peter Hong (洪樂文), who heads the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Department of Engineering and Technologies. Projections show that the proportion of Taiwanese 65 or older would
Nvidia Corp yesterday unveiled its new high-speed interconnect technology, NVLink Fusion, with Taiwanese application-specific IC (ASIC) designers Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) among the first to adopt the technology to help build semi-custom artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure for hyperscalers. Nvidia has opened its technology to outside users, as hyperscalers and cloud service providers are building their own cost-effective AI chips, or accelerators, used in AI servers by leveraging ASIC firms’ designing capabilities to reduce their dependence on Nvidia. Previously, NVLink technology was only available for Nvidia’s own AI platform. “NVLink Fusion opens Nvidia’s AI platform and rich ecosystem for
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it is building nine new advanced wafer manufacturing and packaging factories this year, accelerating its expansion amid strong demand for high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The chipmaker built on average five factories per year from 2021 to last year and three from 2017 to 2020, TSMC vice president of advanced technology and mask engineering T.S. Chang (張宗生) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “We are quickening our pace even faster in 2025. We plan to build nine new factories, including eight wafer fabrication plants and one advanced
‘WORLD’S LOSS’: Taiwan’s exclusion robs the world of the benefits it could get from one of the foremost practitioners of disease prevention and public health, Minister Chiu said Taiwan should be allowed to join the World Health Assembly (WHA) as an irreplaceable contributor to global health and disease prevention efforts, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. He made the comment at a news conference in Taipei, hours before a Taiwanese delegation was to depart for Geneva, Switzerland, seeking to meet with foreign representatives for a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the WHA, the WHO’s annual decisionmaking meeting, which would be held from Monday next week to May 27. As of yesterday, Taiwan had yet to receive an invitation. Taiwan has much to offer to the international community’s