The Criminal Investigation Bureau yesterday said it had arrested six people on suspicion of illegally stockpiling and selling medical masks made by a factory in central Taiwan.
Bureau officials told a news briefing that they had seized 180,000 masks after raiding the factory and several warehouses on Friday last week.
Factory staff and management have allegedly colluded to sell a total of 700,000 masks for NT$10 (US$0.33) each — double the government-mandated price of NT$5 — and made a profit of NT$5 million, officials said.
Photo: Hsu Kuo-chen, Taipei Times
The factory is reportedly connected to one of the 30 companies making up the national team for mask production, which has been working in collaboration with three government-funded research institutes since February and has a daily capacity of 22 million masks.
The six taken in for questioning were the factory’s warehouse manager, surnamed Lin (林), a sales manager, surnamed Hsieh (謝), and four warehouse staff and junior managers, said Lai Ying-men (賴英門), captain of the bureau’s Sixth Investigation Corps, which has jurisdiction over central Taiwan.
After questioning by Taichung prosecutors, Lin and Hsieh were released on bail of NT$400,000 and NT$600,000 respectively. The other four were released without bail.
Lai said that the bureau started its surveillance in late April after receiving reports that a company based in Taichung’s Wurih District (烏日) had been “stockpiling” masks.
Agents conducted an initial raid and found 490,000 masks at a warehouse, Lai said.
Further investigation revealed that while the company has been producing masks in cooperation with the government’s national requisition program, company officials also operated on the side, setting up another firm to procure materials for manufacturing masks and renting seven warehouses in Taichung and Nantou County to evade checks by police and health authorities.
Bureau agents raided 11 locations in Taichung and Nantou County on Friday, including the factory and its warehouses in Puli Township (埔里), where they seized cash, company documents, accounting books and machines.
Agents also found more than 10,000 defective items and faulty masks returned from pharmacies, which Lai said were used to supplement the under-the-table mask production.
All six are facing pending charges for allegedly breaching Article 12 of the Special Act on COVID-19 Prevention, Relief and Recovery (嚴重特殊傳染性肺炎防治及紓困振興特別條例), which states that people convicted of hoarding or driving up prices of medical equipment, devices, drugs, and disease prevention supplies deemed as such by health authorities for combating the virus outbreak may be jailed for up to five years and fined up to NT$5 million.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
ANNUAL EVENT: Two massive Pokemon balloons are to be set up in Daan Park, with an event zone operating from 10am to 6pm This year’s Taipei Floral Picnic is to be held at Daan Park today and tomorrow, featuring an exclusive Pokemon Go event, a themed food market, a coffee rave picnic area and stage performances, the Taipei Department of Information and Tourism said yesterday. Two massive Pokemon balloons are to be set up in the park as attractions, with an exclusive event zone operating from 10am to 6pm, it said. Participants who complete designated tasks on-site would have a chance to receive limited-edition souvenirs, it added. People could also try the newly launched game Pokemon Pokopia in the trial area, the department said. Three PokeStops are
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
RSS