The Aviation Police Bureau (APB) on Tuesday raided several cargo warehouses and a customs brokerage in Taoyuan as part of an investigation into the illegal import of contraband goods, officials said yesterday.
During the search of the brokerage firm, 79 photocopies of personal identification cards, 86 personal chops and 21 authorization forms were found and seized, along with a computer, Criminal Investigation Section head Chuang Ying-shou (莊英壽) said.
The firm had allegedly used forged documents and personal IDs to get contraband cleared through customs at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Chuang said.
Photo: CNA
“We believe the contraband goods included counterfeit drugs, electronic cigarettes, samurai swords, handheld weapons, along with plants and meat products that require quarantine and other checks,” Chuang said.
As the import of some of these items is banned by law, while other items require quarantine checks, people wanting to bring them into the nation often resort to illegal channels by colluding with custom brokers, Chuang said.
The material found in the search appears to show the firm produced fraudulent IDs with personal chops to match the names, and provided forged documents and phony authorization forms, to get shipments through the customs, where they were picked up by the broker’s agents and transported to the recipient’s address, authorities said.
Officers searched the customs brokerage given its history of more than 100 cases of using fraudulent personal IDs and forged documents to collect cargo, the bureau said.
The owner of the firm and several employees had been transferred for questioning to the Taoyuan District Prosecutors’ Office and are expected to be charged with forgery and related offenses.
“We cannot rule out the possibility that narcotics have been smuggled into Taiwan through this channel,” Chuang said.
There have been 29 cases of narcotics smuggling in the first half of the year, with a total 142kg of narcotics seized, of which 102kg were seized at cargo warehouses at Taoyuan Airport, the bureau said.
“It is therefore important to have better monitoring and checks in place at the airport’s cargo warehouses and in the customs clearance process to stem the flow of illegal drugs and other contraband goods,” Chuang said.
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