Two Taiwanese nationals were arrested for allegedly trying to smuggle 7 tonnes of Philippine one-peso coins to China for their nickel content, the National Bureau of Investigation said yesterday.
This was the latest in a series of attempts to smuggle coins out of the country so that they could be melted down for their metal, officials said.
The suspects, identified by the last names Lin and Hsin, were arrested during two raids over the weekend in Manila, bureau regional chief Ruel Lasala said.
PHOTO: AFP
About a million flattened coins were seized in the raids, Lasala said.
The two suspects face charges of mutilating Philippine currency, but Lasala said that the investigations were continuing to see if they could be charged with more serious crimes.
The bureau had information that the two Taiwanese individuals may have already smuggled out some 45 tonnes of flattened one-peso coins to China, Lasala added.
The suspects had apparently resorted to flattening the coins so that they could be shipped out of the country as ordinary base metals.
The Customs Bureau seized three shipments consisting of millions of one-peso coins from February to July, the investigation bureau official said.
Lasala said that it was not known whether the two suspects had been involved in the previous attempts to smuggle out coins.
The rising price of nickel has made the metal content of the one-peso coin worth more than its face value, which is about US$0.02.
According to local media reports, the coins are sold in China for US$20 per kilogram.
In an effort to cut down smuggling, the Philippine Central Bank is now minting one-peso coins using a cheaper alloy.
Taiwan is to receive the first batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 jets from the US late this month, a defense official said yesterday, after a year-long delay due to a logjam in US arms deliveries. Completing the NT$247.2 billion (US$7.69 billion) arms deal for 66 jets would make Taiwan the third nation in the world to receive factory-fresh advanced fighter jets of the same make and model, following Bahrain and Slovakia, the official said on condition of anonymity. F-16 Block 70/72 are newly manufactured F-16 jets built by Lockheed Martin to the standards of the F-16V upgrade package. Republic of China
Taiwan-Japan Travel Passes are available for use on public transit networks in the two countries, Taoyuan Metro Corp said yesterday, adding that discounts of up to 7 percent are available. Taoyuan Metro, the Taipei MRT and Japan’s Keisei Electric Railway teamed up to develop the pass. Taoyuan Metro operates the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport MRT Line, while Keisei Electric Railway offers express services between Tokyo’s Narita Airport, and the Keisei Ueno and Nippori stations in the Japanese capital, as well as between Narita and Haneda airports. The basic package comprises one one-way ticket on the Taoyuan MRT Line and one Skyliner ticket on
EVERYONE’S ISSUE: Kim said that during a visit to Taiwan, she asked what would happen if China attacked, and was told that the global economy would shut down Taiwan is critical to the global economy, and its defense is a “here and now” issue, US Representative Young Kim said during a roundtable talk on Taiwan-US relations on Friday. Kim, who serves on the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee, held a roundtable talk titled “Global Ties, Local Impact: Why Taiwan Matters for California,” at Santiago Canyon College in Orange County, California. “Despite its small size and long distance from us, Taiwan’s cultural and economic importance is felt across our communities,” Kim said during her opening remarks. Stanford University researcher and lecturer Lanhee Chen (陳仁宜), lawyer Lin Ching-chi
A pro-Russia hacker group has launched a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on the Taiwanese government in retaliation for President William Lai’s (賴清德) comments suggesting that China should have a territorial dispute with Russia, an information security company said today. The hacker group, NoName057, recently launched an HTTPs flood attack called “DDoSia” targeting Taiwanese government and financial units, Radware told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). Local tax bureaus in New Taipei City, Keelung, Hsinchu and Taoyuan were mentioned by the hackers. Only the Hsinchu Local Tax Bureau site appeared to be down earlier in the day, but was back
RSS