Four suspects in the robbery of a jewelry store were taken to the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office last night after National Police Agency (NPA) personnel from across Taiwan coordinated to apprehend them after the incident in the city on Thursday.
At about 9:45am on Thursday, three masked men barged into the store in Sanchong District (三重) as the proprietor, a man surnamed Hsiao (蕭), opened the roller door.
The three robbers tied him up then looted gold, gems, jade and other valuables worth an estimated NT$30 million (US$1.05 million), Hsiao said.
Photo: Wu Ren-chieh, Taipei Times
Investigators said that surveillance footage showed that three men entered the store while a woman waited nearby in a car, although one of the men fled on a scooter and another hailed a taxi.
After New Taipei City Police caught the first suspect, a man surnamed Peng (彭), 63, in Yonghe District (永和) on Thursday afternoon, the other two men and the woman were detained at separate locations yesterday, police said.
The video footage, witness accounts and other evidence enabled preliminary identification of the suspects, police said.
A man surnamed Wang (王), 50, was detained in a mountainous area of the city’s Sansia District (三峽); Chen Ching-ke (陳清課), 70 — who is suspected to be the group’s leader — was detained in Hualien; and the woman, surnamed Hsia (夏), 50, was apprehended in Kaohsiung, police said, adding that some of the jewelry was recovered.
Investigators said that they considered Chen to be the group’s mastermind, as he has been convicted of similar raids on jewelry and luxury watch stores in the 1990s.
His previous heists, for which he has served prison time, netted mechandise worth NT$1 billion, they said.
Agency officials said that after being released from prison in June last year, he was suspected of robbing a mansion in Hsinchu County four months later.
Two accomplices were detained in that case, but not Chen, they said.
Police officials quoted him as saying: “This robbery was supposed to be my last one. I intended to retire after this one.”
NPA Director-General Chen Ja-chin (陳家欽) said that when he was a section head at the Criminal Investigation Bureau, he handled cases involving Chen Ching-ke and had apprehended the “master bandit” twice.
Hsia allegedly drove the car with Chen Ching-ke and portions of the loot to her residence in Kaohsiung, investigators said.
In a bid to evade police, Chen Ching-ke allegedly took a train from Kaohsiung to Hualien, they said.
He was found carrying a handgun and an explosive device, police said, adding that they surprised him inside a train car as it was arriving at Hualien Station.
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