Gangsters are blackmailing dental clinics in Taipei City, threatening to shoot dentists and their families if they don't pay into a bank account in China, a Taipei City councilor said yesterday.
The councilor, Chen Chia-ming (陳嘉銘), said the gangsters had targeted 22 clinics in Taipei City's Ta-an and Shihlin districts.
The owners of the clinics all received similar blackmail demands, which asked the dentists to wire 20,000 yuan (US$2,400) to an account at Guangdong Development Bank in the name of Meng Shih-fan (孟世芬).
"The blackmailers threatened to shoot the dentists or their family members and disturb their clinics' business if they refused to pay or tried to contact the police," Chen said.
Ger Chien-pu (
"We still don't know how many blackmailers there are, maybe one, maybe several in a criminal ring," Ger said.
"There are nearly 1,000 dental clinics in the Taipei metropolitan area. Usually, if it's just a small amount of money, I'd say most dentists would believe that they can stay out of trouble if they pay as requested. These blackmailers knew this and we believe many dentists have paid."
Ger said the problem might not be limited to Taipei City clinics, and that any of the country's roughly 6,000 clinics could also be blackmailed if their owners did not contact the police.
"Do not be afraid to step forward," he said.
The police said that the blackmail appeared to be the work of a criminal ring and that they were hopeful the blackmailers would be caught quickly.
"For dentists who have reported to us that they are being blackmailed, we have scheduled regular patrols from local police stations to secure their clinics," said Yeh Chin-chou (葉錦洲), deputy chief of the Taipei City Police Headquarters Criminal Investigation Corps' first division.
"Since the blackmailers requested the victims wire money to an overseas bank account, the International Division of the National Police Administration's Criminal Investigation Bureau (
Taiwan yesterday condemned the recent increase in Chinese coast guard-escorted fishing vessels operating illegally in waters around the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. Unusually large groupings of Chinese fishing vessels began to appear around the islands on Feb. 15, when at least six motherships and 29 smaller boats were sighted, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said in a news release. While CGA vessels were dispatched to expel the Chinese boats, Chinese coast guard ships trespassed into Taiwan’s restricted waters and unsuccessfully attempted to interfere, the CGA said. Due to the provocation, the CGA initiated an operation to increase
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
CHANGING LANDSCAPE: Many of the part-time programs for educators were no longer needed, as many teachers obtain a graduate degree before joining the workforce, experts said Taiwanese universities this year canceled 86 programs, Ministry of Education data showed, with educators attributing the closures to the nation’s low birthrate as well as shifting trends. Fifty-three of the shuttered programs were part-time postgraduate degree programs, about 62 percent of the total, the most in the past five years, the data showed. National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) discontinued the most part-time master’s programs, at 16: chemistry, life science, earth science, physics, fine arts, music, special education, health promotion and health education, educational psychology and counseling, education, design, Chinese as a second language, library and information sciences, mechatronics engineering, history, physical education
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
RSS