A 28-year-old man surnamed Hung (洪) was detained yesterday after being questioned by prosecutors for allegedly threatening online to carry out mass killings on New Year’s Eve.
Hung was on Sunday arrested in his apartment in Kaohsiung’s Sanmin District (三民) after a police taskforce traced the virtual private network (VPN) routes Hung used to hide his Internet protocol (IP) address, Criminal Investigation Bureau spokesperson Ho Ming-hsien (何明賢) told a news conference in Taipei yesterday.
Hung is accused of posting threatening messages online early on Wednesday last week.
Photo: CNA
The messages said that a team of 30 “suicide commandos” had been gathered to set off bombs at major gatherings and busy places in Taipei, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung on New Year’s Eve.
The team would carry “Japanese samurai swords, Rambo knives and other weapons, to carry out indiscriminate killings,” the messages said.
Due to the messages, an additional 10,000 police were mobilized to patrol major New Year’s Eve events nationwide, Ho said.
Hung was detained days after the bureau questioned two other people — one in New Taipei City surnamed Tang (湯) and another in Yilan County surnamed Yu (游) — in relation to the bomb threats, Ho said, adding that both were released after it was found that they did not issue the threats.
Evidence found on laptops in Hung’s apartment indicated that he had used Tang’s and Yu’s social media accounts, and a VPN to show his IP address as coming from Japan, Ho said.
PHung faces charges relating to public intimidation, offenses against computer security and forgery for assuming another person’s online account, as well as destruction of evidence, as police said that he had reformatted his laptops in an attempt to cover up his online activity.
Ho said that Hung had worked part-time at convenience stores and gas stations after graduating from college.
His family thought that he was too immersed in computers, Ho added.
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