Six suspects have been detained after two decomposed bodies were found stuffed into drums last week, Criminal Investigation Bureau officials said in Taichung yesterday.
One of the suspects, Hsu Te-yi (徐德益), 34, is believed to head a Taichung-based crime ring, the officials said, adding that the other five men are surnamed Chang (張), Tung (童), Chao (趙), Wang (王) and Sung (宋).
The two victims were identified as a man surnamed Huang (黃), 54, and a 16-year-old girl, whose family reported her missing in May 2017. Their bodies were found on Wednesday.
There are three other alleged accomplices, including Hsu’s wife, surnamed Chen (陳), a male juvenile and another man who is serving time in prison for another case, bureau officials said.
Bureau units in cooperation with a local police precinct rounded up the suspects over the weekend.
Hsu and Chen were found in Hualien, having fled Taichung after Hsu’s subordinates tipped him off about his imminent arrest, the officials said.
Investigators said that Hsu’s gang kidnapped Huang last year.
Hsu became involved in a land dispute as he was trying buy up properties worth more than NT$20 million (US$694,372). Huang was one of the owners and testified in a trail at the Taichung District Court against Hsu.
Hsu allegedly told his subordinates to kidnap Huang and take him to a dog breeding compound in a mountainous area near Taichung, investigators said.
Huang was allegedly beaten up, and then shot by Hsu with a handgun, they said, adding that his body was stuffed into a large plastic drum, which was filled with strong acid.
After the acid corroded the body, Hsu told his subordinates to pour concrete mix into the drum and dispose of it in a hilly area in Miaoli County, investigators said.
Hsu allegedly suspected the teen of stealing his money, they said.
She was taken to an area in Hsinchu County, where she was beaten and stabbed to death, investigators said, adding that her body was stuffed in a plastic drum, and doused in acid and concrete mix, before the drum was left in Taichung.
The murders were only revealed when a member of the gang told police they had seen the incidents.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not