Police have arrested four alleged members of a criminal gang in connection with the death of a teenager in Taichung, where the victim’s body was found covered in burn marks and wounds consistent with torture.
Police said they suspect the victim, Lin Hung-yu (林泓佑), 19, was tortured for more than 10 days, as preliminary examinations showed he suffered from cuts and burns.
The Taichung District Prosecutors’ Office said the gang was made up of people in their teens and early 20s who were allegedly involved in telephone scams.
Prosecutors detained four suspects for questioning yesterday, including a 24-year-old woman surnamed Hsu (許) whom police allege was the ringleader of the gang, along with her 21-year-old brother, a 25-year-old man surnamed Lin (林) and a 19-year-old man surnamed Chen (陳), who was later transferred to the local juvenile court.
Police said the victim allegedly joined the gang with a friend, a 17-year-old surnamed Liao (廖), to work as money collectors.
However, police said that the gang believed the two teenagers did not hand over all the money they collected, pocketing NT$550,000.
Investigators allege the two teenagers were seized by gang members on Sunday last week and taken to Hsu’s residence in Taichung.
For about 10 days, the two teenagers were allegedly beaten and tortured before Liao escaped and went to the police for help.
When police arrived at Hsu’s residence with search warrants on Thursday, they found Lin’s body with burns and more than 100 cuts.
Liao said he and Lin were tortured by gang members, alleging they were beaten with a baseball bat, burned with cigarettes and a blow torch and shot at with a pellet gun.
In the postmortem examination yesterday, police said Lin likely died of asphyxiation, as objects were found in his nose and mouth.
Authorities, who are searching for other gang members, said the suspects will be charged with murder.
There are 77 incidents of Taiwanese travelers going missing in China between January last year and last month, the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) said. More than 40 remain unreachable, SEF Secretary-General Luo Wen-jia (羅文嘉) said on Friday. Most of the reachable people in the more than 30 other incidents were allegedly involved in fraud, while some had disappeared for personal reasons, Luo said. One of these people is Kuo Yu-hsuan (郭宇軒), a 22-year-old Taiwanese man from Kaohsiung who went missing while visiting China in August. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office last month said in a news statement that he was under investigation
‘JOINT SWORD’: Whatever President Lai says in his Double Ten speech, China would use it as a pretext to launch ‘punishment’ drills for his ‘separatist’ views, an official said China is likely to launch military drills this week near Taiwan, using President William Lai’s (賴清德) upcoming national day speech as a pretext to pressure the nation to accept its sovereignty claims, Taiwanese officials said. China in May launched “punishment” drills around Taiwan shortly after Lai’s inauguration, in what Beijing said was a response to “separatist acts,” sending heavily armed warplanes and staging mock attacks as state media denounced newly inaugurated Lai. The May drills were dubbed “Joint Sword — 2024A” and drew concerns from capitals, including Washington. Lai is to deliver a key speech on Thursday in front of the Presidential Office
An aviation jacket patch showing a Formosan black bear punching Winnie the Pooh has become popular overseas, including at an aviation festival held by the Japan Air Self-Defense Force at the Ashiya Airbase yesterday. The patch was designed last year by Taiwanese designer Hsu Fu-yu (徐福佑), who said that it was inspired by Taiwan’s countermeasures against frequent Chinese military aircraft incursions. The badge shows a Formosan black bear holding a Republic of China flag as it punches Winnie the Pooh — a reference to Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — who is dressed in red and is holding a honey pot with
Taiwan was listed in 14th place among the world's wealthiest country in terms of GDP per capita, in the latest rankings released on Monday by Forbes magazine. Taiwan's GDP per capita was US$76,860, which put it at No. 14 on the list of the World's 100 Richest Countries this year, one spot above Hong Kong with US$75,130. The magazine's list of the richest countries in the world is compiled based on GDP per capita data, as estimated by the IMF. However, for a more precise measure of a nation's wealth, the magazine also considers purchasing power parity, which is a metric used to
RSS