Four Thai men were arrested in Thailand recently on charges of kidnapping a Taiwanese woman after police from Taiwan, Thailand and Myanmar made concerted efforts to crack down on a Thai crime ring, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) reported yesterday.
Altogether, seven Thais are suspected of being involved in the kidnapping. Thai police are still searching for the other three suspects who remain at large. Two of the four arrested are career Thai soldiers, CIB officials who participated in the investigation and roundup operations said.
According to the CIB investigators, five Thai men broke into the residence of the woman, surnamed Hsu-Lin, in Chiang Rai on Aug. 1, and abducted her. They then demanded a ransom of 30 million baht (US$720,000) from her husband and family who live in Taiwan.
The bureau joined the cross-border crackdown operations after Thai police authorities approached Taiwan's representative office in Thailand for help early last month. The office then informed Investigation Bureau Commissioner Hou You-yi about the case and asked for help in the investigations.
According to the investigators, the four suspected kidnappers had been hiding with Hsu in the Tanen Mountains bordering northwestern Thailand and southeastern Myanmar before they collected a bargained-down ransom of NT$4 million (US$117,994) and released Hsu-Lin on Aug. 20.
To facilitate the arrest, Thai police have provided their Burmese counterparts with Hsu's photo as well as information about her kidnappers.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS