As Typhoon Chan-Hom battered the nation early yesterday morning, police cracked another case of illegal lumbering, which implicated a group of five who allegedly cut down 370kg of precious Taiwan yellow cedar with an estimated value of at least NT$300,000 (US$9,606).
The incident was the fourth case of suspected illegal logging activity uncovered by police in the past 30 days.
Chiayi County Jhuchi Precinct (竹崎) officer Lin Yi-hao (林乙皓), who led the operation, said that he and his colleagues had detected suspicious behavior from the group before the typhoon made landfall, as the suspects had driven along Provincial Highway 18, which leads to Alishan, several times on Thursday.
He said that the suspects started lumbering in the early hours, and attempted to transport the ill-gotten lumber down the mountain in a black SUV, with a sedan guiding the way.
He said that as soon as the suspects discovered that they had been followed by police, they sped up and started what he describes as a “kamikaze” car chase with police.
The SUV made a sudden turn and headed back up to the mountain, which prompted the officers to threaten over a megaphone that they would open fire if they did not pull over, Lin said.
Two suspects, surnamed Wang (王) and Tsai (蔡) also allegedly had ketamine and amphetamine in the vehicle, he said.
The police later set up a checkpoint to intercept the sedan and found the other three suspects, two men and one woman, who were also allegedly in possession of ketamine.
Lin said that the passengers in the sedan initially denied that they had any relationship with Wang and Tsai, but later admitted to what they did after police presented surveillance footage, showing the group interacting with one another.
He said that the group committed the crime because they wanted the money to buy drugs.
Police suspect the group have a stockpile of lumber and are working to locate it.
He said that the suspects were after the valuable tree stumps, which they dug out of the ground and as a result damaged large tracts of soil and degraded the water-holding capacity of the forest.
The suspects were being detained at the Chiayi Detention Center over violations of the Forestry Act (森林法).
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