A man suspected of shooting the boss of Taoyuan’s Maolin gang has been apprehended as he tried to flee the country, police said yesterday.
Police say the man surnamed Lin (林) is suspected of being one of two gunmen who killed Chiang Tsung-lin (江宗霖) in Longtan District (龍潭) on Wednesday.
A wanted bulletin led to Lin’s arrest late on Wednesday at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport before he boarded a flight scheduled to leave early in the morning, Longtan Police Precinct deputy chief Shen Ting-li (沈廷利) said.
The local court yesterday approved his detention under restricted communication as prosecutors seek murder charges.
“We also have information on an alleged second gunman. The police task force handling the case is tracking him down and hopes to catch him in the next few days,” Shen said.
The Maolin gang is active in Longtan and the surrounding regions. After its formation about 20 years ago, it allegedly engaged in extortion and collected protection fees, before later engaging in debt collection and telecom fraud.
Chiang was ambushed when getting into a vehicle in front of his residence by two gunmen, who opened the door and fired six shots, police said.
Chiang sustained fatal wounds to his head and neck, as well as two wounds to his chest and right arm, Shen said. He was pronounced dead at a local hospital.
In other news, three suspects in the stabbing and burning of alleged loan shark boss Shih Cheng-hsiung (施政雄) were detained yesterday and face murder and corpse abandonment charges.
The three, surnamed Chiang (江), Tang (唐) and Chen (陳), worked for Shih in New Taipei City’s Linkou (林口) and Taishan (泰山) districts, prosecutors said.
Shih, 54, was known locally as a wealthy man who profited from offering short-term loans with high interest rates, which he used violence to collect, police said.
One suspect during questioning said that Shih in June accused the three men of stealing more than NT$1 million (US$31,993 at the current exchange rate) by falsifying accounts and forging receipts.
The trio allegedly stabbed Shih in his office, then drove the body to Chiang’s grandparents’ house in Yilan County’s Jhuangwei Township (壯圍), where they chopped the body into parts, burned it and buried it on a farm, police said.
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