Police on Friday seized 24 guns, 1,200 bullet cartridges and narcotics in a series of raids in New Taipei City.
A 29-year-old man surnamed Cheng (鄭), who is allegedly a member of the Heavenly Way Alliance, has been placed in detention and might face firearms and drug charges, the Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office said in a news release yesterday.
Two dozen guns were confiscated, in addition to 14.33kg of mephedrone, 969 bags of ketamine mixed with amphetamine and other substances, and 40 bags of ketamine, the office said.
Photo: CNA
Authorities suspect that Cheng was providing guns for other members of the gang and led a drug ring that operated in New Taipei City’s Tamsui District (淡水), it said.
Two of Cheng’s alleged associates, one surnamed Pan (潘) and another surnamed Wang (王), were released on bail of NT$70,000 and NT$20,000 respectively, the office said, adding that a fourth suspect is still at large.
Law enforcement officials said that intelligence from another investigation revealed that the Heavenly Way Alliance might be storing arms in New Taipei City.
The Criminal Investigation Division, Taipei’s Zhongshan Police Precinct and the National Police Bureau’s Special Task Unit then created a task force to organize the raids, they said.
Police said that Cheng was arrested in an apartment in Tamsui that contained drugs, while a shed on a property he rented contained one cache of guns, and a second cache of guns was found when police searched Wang’s home.
Rifles, submachine guns and semi-automatic shotguns were among the weapons recovered during the raids, the Taipei Police Department’s Criminal Investigation Division said on Friday.
The serial numbers and design suggest that some of the guns were manufactured in an illegal arms factory in the Philippines, police said.
The pistols were mostly genuine Beretta and Ceska zbrojovka weapons, although one handgun was likley created in an illegal workshop, police said.
Additional reporting by Chen Chia-yu
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
RSS