A Chinese-American graduate student surnamed Lin (林) is being held on suspicion of running a syndicate shipping firearms from the Philippines to Taiwan and onward to Hong Kong and cities in China.
The evidence suggests that Lin, 31, who studies at a Taiwanese law school, led the operation, police said, adding that Lin has been in custody since late last month and they had decided to restrict his communications from yesterday.
Lin was born in China, but his family later moved to Hong Kong, a National Police Agency official said, adding that he obtained UK citizenship and US citizenship before moving to Taiwan to study law seven years ago.
Photo: CNA
“Investigators found that Lin was operating an international firearms smuggling racket. He marketed himself as an arms dealer on YouTube and other Web sites, where he posted handguns for sale and videos of target practice to attract buyers,” said Third Special Police Corps first squadron leader Hsu Ke-chiang (許克強), whose unit collaborated with the Criminal Investigation Bureau.
When they last month raided the residences of Lin and four other suspects in Taipei and Kaohsiung, police and bureau officers uncovered pistol barrels, and magazines and slides for Beretta, Glock and IWI Jericho handguns.
Police intend to charge the five suspects with forgery and contravening the Controlling Guns, Ammunition and Knives Act (槍砲彈藥刀械管制條例) and the Organized Crime Prevention Act (組織犯罪條例), Hsu added.
Investigators found that Lin made frequent trips to the Philippines, Hong Kong and China starting in July last year, on which they suspect he sourced firearms and built connections.
Based on courier mail delivery records over the past year, Hsu said that Lin might have shipped firearm components for at least 20 handguns to Hong Kong and China, which he said could have yielded NT$2 million (US$67,078) in profit.
Bureau officials said investigators found that Taiwan was a transshipment center for the operation.
Lin placed orders with Philippine underground manufacturers to modify or manufacture replica parts, then smuggled them to Taiwan in shipping containers, hiding the firearm parts inside motors, pumps and machinery, the officials said.
Lin hired people to pick up the cargo using forged documentation and repackaged the parts for courier delivery to China, they said.
Four other suspects have been brought in for questioning in the case — a woman surnamed Chen (陳), and three men surnamed Liu (劉), Huang (黃) and Hung (洪).
Chen said she applied for a job online and Lin paid her only NT$6,000 as administrative assistant, while the other suspects all said they did not know it was an illegal smuggling business, the bureau said.
They said they only knew that Lin paid them to pick up goods, to deliver them and to provide their own names and addresses for the the inbound cargo and outbound courier shipments, the bureau said.
Four factors led to the declaration of a typhoon day and the cancelation of classes yesterday, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said. Work and classes were canceled across Taiwan yesterday as Typhoon Krathon was forecast to make landfall in the southern part of the country. However, northern Taiwan had only heavy winds during the day and rain in the evening, leading some to criticize the cancelation. Speaking at a Taipei City Council meeting yesterday, Chiang said the decision was made due to the possibility of landslides and other problems in mountainous areas, the need to avoid a potentially dangerous commute for those
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
PRO-CHINA SLOGANS: Two DPP members criticized police officers’ lack of action at the scene, saying that law enforcement authorities should investigate the incident Chinese tourists allegedly interrupted a protest in Taipei on Tuesday held by Hong Kongers, knocked down several flags and shouted: “Taiwan and Hong Kong belong to China.” Hong Kong democracy activists were holding a demonstration as Tuesday was China’s National Day. A video posted online by civic group Hong Kong Outlanders shows a couple, who are allegedly Chinese, during the demonstration. “Today is China’s National Day, and I won’t allow the displaying of these flags,” the male yells in the video before pushing some demonstrators and knocking down a few flagpoles. Radio Free Asia reported that some of the demonstrators
China is attempting to subsume Taiwanese culture under Chinese culture by promulgating legislation on preserving documents on ties between the Minnan region and Taiwan, a Taiwanese academic said yesterday. China on Tuesday enforced the Fujian Province Minnan and Taiwan Document Protection Act to counter Taiwanese cultural independence with historical evidence that would root out misleading claims, Chinese-language media outlet Straits Today reported yesterday. The act is “China’s first ad hoc local regulations in the cultural field that involve Taiwan and is a concrete step toward implementing the integrated development demonstration zone,” Fujian Provincial Archives deputy director Ma Jun-fan (馬俊凡) said. The documents
RSS