More than 5 tonnes of illegal drugs and related materials have been seized at ports of entry to Taiwan in the first eight months of this year, with more than 90 percent of them coming from China or Southeast Asia, the Customs Administration said yesterday.
The agency, in cooperation with other domestic and foreign anti-narcotics agencies, confiscated 5,464.3kg of illegal drugs and related chemicals from January to last month, Customs Administration Director-General Hsieh Ling-yuan (謝鈴媛) told a news conference attended by officials from the nation’s six major anti-narcotics agencies.
The agencies are the High Prosecutors’ Office, the National Police Agency, the Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau, the Military Police Command and the Coast Guard Administration.
According to Customs Administration statistics, 3,020.4kg, or 55.3 percent of the seized chemicals, came from Southeast Asian nations, with Vietnam, Thailand and Myanmar the top three sources, accounting for 1,887.5kg (34.5 percent), 613.4kg (11.2 percent) and 318.4kg (5.8 percent), respectively.
A total of 2,079.2kg (38.1 percent) came from China, including Hong Kong, making it the biggest external source of illegal substances in Taiwan, the agency said.
The rest of the drugs were from the US, Canada and Europe, it added.
The most common illegal substances seized by customs officials were ketamine, amphetamines and heroin, with a market value of about NT$2 billion (US$63.7 million), agency officials said.
Hsieh said that her agency would step up its anti-narcotics efforts by deepening intelligence sharing with other agencies and neighboring nations, while deploying more advanced drug-detection instruments and X-ray devices and bolstering sniffer dog units.
In anti-drug operations conducted from July 22 to Aug. 5, personnel from the six local agencies seized 2,571kg of illegal drugs and raided 13 drug manufacturing plants, officials told the news conference, adding that 1,182 suspected drug dealers were arrested and more than NT$10 million in suspected illegal profits were confiscated.
Officials urged the public and civic groups to help the government’s anti-narcotics efforts by reporting suspicious drug-related activities to the authorities, and called on drug addicts to undergo rehabilitation.
Thirty-five earthquakes have exceeded 5.5 on the Richter scale so far this year, the most in 14 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said on Facebook on Thursday. A large earthquake in Hualien County on April 3 released five times as much the energy as the 921 Earthquake on Sept. 21, 1999, the agency said in its latest earthquake report for this year. Hualien County has had the most national earthquake alerts so far this year at 64, with Yilan County second with 23 and Changhua County third with nine, the agency said. The April 3 earthquake was what caused the increase in
INTIMIDATION: In addition to the likely military drills near Taiwan, China has also been waging a disinformation campaign to sow division between Taiwan and the US Beijing is poised to encircle Taiwan proper in military exercise “Joint Sword-2024C,” starting today or tomorrow, as President William Lai (賴清德) returns from his visit to diplomatic allies in the Pacific, a national security official said yesterday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said that multiple intelligence sources showed that China is “highly likely” to launch new drills around Taiwan. Although the drills’ scale is unknown, there is little doubt that they are part of the military activities China initiated before Lai’s departure, they said. Beijing at the same time is conducting information warfare by fanning skepticism of the US and
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is unlikely to attempt an invasion of Taiwan during US president-elect Donald Trump’s time in office, Taiwanese and foreign academics said on Friday. Trump is set to begin his second term early next year. Xi’s ambition to establish China as a “true world power” has intensified over the years, but he would not initiate an invasion of Taiwan “in the near future,” as his top priority is to maintain the regime and his power, not unification, Tokyo Woman’s Christian University distinguished visiting professor and contemporary Chinese politics expert Akio Takahara said. Takahara made the comment at a
DEFENSE: This month’s shipment of 38 modern M1A2T tanks would begin to replace the US-made M60A3 and indigenous CM11 tanks, whose designs date to the 1980s The M1A2T tanks that Taiwan expects to take delivery of later this month are to spark a “qualitative leap” in the operational capabilities of the nation’s armored forces, a retired general told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) in an interview published yesterday. On Tuesday, the army in a statement said it anticipates receiving the first batch of 38 M1A2T Abrams main battle tanks from the US, out of 108 tanks ordered, in the coming weeks. The M1 Abrams main battle tank is a generation ahead of the Taiwanese army’s US-made M60A3 and indigenously developed CM11 tanks, which have
RSS