A robbery and murder suspect who has been on the run for more than five years was repatriated to Taiwan from South Africa yesterday, police said.
Cheng Cheng-chi (程正基), 38, who has been accused of involvement in a Carrefour hypermarket cash-van robbery, 20-plus jewelry shop robberies in Taiwan and a murder case in South Africa, was sent back to Taiwan under police escort.
Cheng, nicknamed the "white monkey," fled Taiwan in August 1996 after allegedly taking part in the robbing of NT$2 million from a company in May 1996 and more than NT$94.4 million from a Carrefour cash van in August that year.
A member of the Bamboo Union gang, Cheng was also accused of having been involved in more than 20 robberies of gold shops between 1995 and 1996 -- as well as in at least two gun fights in Taipei in 1994 in which people were injured.
Several of Cheng's accomplices in those cases have been arrested over the past few years.
According to police investigations, Cheng had traveled around Singapore, Hong Kong and China before settling in Cape Town, South Africa, in late 1997.
Cheng then joined with other Bamboo Union gangsters there in the shark-fin and abalone trade. Due to conflicts of business interests, Cheng allegedly murdered two Taiwanese businessmen in South Africa -- Liao Sheng-hsiung (廖勝雄) and his son, Liao Jen-wu(廖仁武), in May 1999.
The Liaos' housemaid happened to witness the murders, so Cheng shot her as well.
Over the past few years, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) under the National Police Administration has on several occasions sent officers to South Africa to assist in pursuing Cheng, but the efforts were futile. With dogged perseverance, CIB officers managed to cooperate with South African police in nabbing Cheng in March this year.
After six months of investigations into Cheng's alleged role in the murder of the Liaos and their housemaid, South African police agreed to send Cheng back to Taiwan to stand trial for a number of other crimes he has committed.
Two South African police officers escorted Cheng back to Taiwan and CIB officers took him into custody at CKS International Airport.
CIB Director Cheng Ching-sung (
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS