Police arrested suspected mem-bers of a drug trafficking ring on Tuesday after confiscating 63kg of liquid ketamine at CKS Inter-national Airport, investigation and prosecution sources reported yesterday.
The seizure marked the largest ketamine haul ever at CKS airport, according to an official from the Taipei Municipal Police Investigation Department.
The ketamine, a grade three contraband drug, has an estimated street value of NT$100 million (US$2.9 million), the investigators said.
Two suspects, identified as Ong Tze-tsang (
The method of smuggling was unusual, according to the police, as the smugglers put bags of frozen ketamine in containers of live fish, disguising the drugs as bags of ice to keep the shipment fresh.
Ong, a former employee at a customs brokerage house and suspected member of an international drug ring, had registered the shipment as eight containers of live fish from Thailand.
Investigators said that they had been tipped off in March that a cross-border drug trafficking ring was planning to smuggle ketamine from Cambodia to Taiwan via Thailand.
After six months, the investigators learned of Ong's alleged involvement and traced the source of the ketamine from the Cambodian supply source. They found that the shipment had first been transported from Cambodia to Thailand by road. It was then brought to Taiwan via air cargo.
Investigators said they believed that Ong and his alleged accomplices had used the method to smuggle liquid ketamine into the country more than 10 times since February this year.
The coast guard on Friday took a Chinese fishing boat and the 17 people on board into custody, after it rammed into a patrol boat while attempting to flee. A 100-tonne coast guard vessel at about 8am discovered a Chinese fishing boat illegally operating in waters about 11 nautical miles (20.4km) northwest of Hsinchu, the Hsinchu offshore flotilla of the Coast Guard Administration said. The crew refused to allow law enforcement to board the ship and attempted to flee, it added. The coast guard vessel and another ship chased the fishing boat for about a half hour, during which time the Chinese boat
Vice President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday said that Beijing was trying to “annex” Taiwan, while China said its recent series of drills near Taiwan are aimed at combating the “arrogance” of separatist forces. The Ministry of National Defense earlier this month said that it had observed dozens of Chinese fighters, drones, bombers and other aircraft, as well as warships and the Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong, operating nearby. The increased frequency of China’s military activities has raised the risk of events “getting out of hand” and sparking an accidental clash, Minister of National Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正) said last week. Asked about the spurt
China’s Office of the Commissioner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Hong Kong has asked foreign consulates in Hong Kong to submit details of their local staff, which is more proof that the “one country, two systems” model no longer exists, a Taiwanese academic said. The office sent letters dated Monday last week to consulates in the territory, giving them one month to submit the information it requires. The move followed Beijing’s attempt to obtain floor plans for all properties used by foreign missions in Hong Kong last year, which raised concerns among diplomats that the information could be used for
‘ABNORMITY’: News of the military exercises on the coast of the Chinese province facing Taiwan were made public by the Ministry of National Defense on Thursday Taiwan’s military yesterday said it has detected the Chinese military initiating a round of exercises at a bay area in coastal Fujian Province, which faces Taiwan, since early yesterday morning and it has been closely monitoring the drills. The exercises being conducted at Fujian’s Dacheng Bay featured an undisclosed number of People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) warplanes, warships and ground troops, the Ministry of National Defense said in a press statement. The ministry did not disclose what kind of military exercises are being conducted there and for how long they would be happening, but it did say that it has been closely watching
RSS