A registered sex offender from the US who went missing after entering Taiwan has been found and would be deported in light of the risk he poses to the public, the National Immigration Agency (NIA) said yesterday.
The agency launched a search for Levi Forrest Wallace, 43, after it was informed by the American Institute of Taiwan (AIT) that he had entered Taiwan on Oct. 2 on a tourist visa.
He was not on the US government’s wanted list.
Photo courtesy of the National Immigration Agency
Wallace was sentenced to 90 days in jail with a two-year probation in 2001 after he was convicted of sexual delinquency of a minor in Oregon, information from the AIT showed.
Wallace did not stay in a hotel in Taoyuan as stated on his card, the NIA said, adding that he was then placed on the agency’s closely watched list and would not be permitted to stay when found.
The agency subsequently alerted the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Labor and National Police Agency to watch out for Wallace and prevent him from finding a job or securing a permit to stay in Taiwan, the NIA said.
The education ministry also asked education departments across the country to report by today whether any cram school in their locality had hired Wallace.
Before finding Wallace, the NIA had said he would be deported from Taiwan and permanently banned from entering again pursuant to the Immigration Act (入出國及移民法).
The agency’s requests for a subpoena and permission to wiretap were both denied by the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office, on the grounds that the agency had no right to do so, as Wallace had committed no crime in Taiwan and had no criminal motive or attempt.
The AIT did not respond to the NIA’s inquiry on whether Wallace could return to the US, the agency said.
The Taoyuan Police Department’s Dayuan Precinct located Wallace in an apartment on Taipei’s Minsheng E Road at about 5pm yesterday and detained him.
A subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based company that has lost control of two critical ports on the Panama Canal said it is seeking US$2 billion of compensation in damages from Panama over its “illegal” takeover of the ports. Panama Ports Co, a unit of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings (長江和記實業), on Friday said in a statement that it is demanding the sum under international arbitration proceedings that it had already started. The Panamanian government last week seized control of the Balboa and Cristobal ports on each end of the Panama Canal, after the country’s Supreme Court declared earlier that a concession allowing
DETERRENCE: With 1,000 indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III missiles and 400 Harpoon missiles, the nation would boast the highest anti-ship missile density in the world With Taiwan wrapping up mass production of Hsiung Feng II and III missiles by December and an influx of Harpoon missiles from the US, Taiwan would have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world, a source said yesterday. Taiwan is to wrap up mass production of the indigenous anti-ship missiles by the end of year, as the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been meeting production targets ahead of schedule, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said. Combined with the 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles Taiwan expects to receive from the US by 2028, the nation would have
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
RSS