A wanted man was arrested when he was caught swimming to the factory where he works in the Greater Taichung Harbor to avoid going through the harbor’s checkpoint.
Taichung Harbor police officer Lin Cheng-kai (林正愷) said it was a “very strange” case.
On Saturday morning, police were informed that a man was swimming in waters off the harbor and appeared to be drowning, Lin said.
Lin said he and about 20 rescuers went out looking for the man, only to discover later on that the man had made it ashore and was standing on the beach in his underwear.
Lin said the man refused to reveal his identity, but after being brought to the police station, police determined that he was Hsiao Chi-sung (蕭吉松) — a 41-year-old who was wanted by the authorities.
Hsiao had beeen sentenced to seven years and nine months in prison after he was convicted of a robbery, but he avoided being sent to prison by going on the run. He had been on the wanted list for two years.
Lin said police believed Hsiao had been in hiding in the Greater Taichung area where he was looking for work.
Hsiao told police that he had been a contract worker for a steel factory in the harbor for three months, Lin said.
As Hsiao was unable to use his ID to apply for a passcard to get through checkpoints to enter the harbor, he had been using another person’s pass for three months, Lin said.
However, a few days ago he had a dispute with some colleagues. Fearing they would report the matter to the police, he decided he would swim to work instead, Lin said.
Lin said Hsiao was believed to have been swimming to work for a couple of days before he was caught on Saturday.
Hsiao has since been sent to prison to start serving his sentence, Lin said.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
US President Donald Trump said "it’s up to" Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be "very unhappy" with a change in the "status quo," the New York Times said in an interview published yesterday. Xi "considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing," Trump told the newspaper on Wednesday. "But I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that," he added. "I hope he doesn’t do that." Trump made the comments in
RSS