The kidnapping and torture of more than 60 people involved Taiwan’s major gangs, police officials said as authorities warned that jobseekers are still being conned by human traffickers.
At a news conference in Taipei yesterday, National Police Agency Director-General Huang Ming-chao (黃明昭) praised judicial agencies and local police for their diligence, when announcing that nine suspects had been arrested in a case of alleged kidnapping and human trafficking by a gang based in the Hsinchu area.
“Our government is taking strong action, with law enforcement agencies undertaking operations across the nation. We are clamping down on snakehead operations involving human trafficking to Southeast Asia, and have cracked down on extortion and torture rings, cutting off their money flows, and are tracking down gang members involved in these crimes,” Huang said.
Most recently, police rescued a university student after his family reported him missing, arresting nine suspects in the process, he said.
The suspects were allegedly led by a man surnamed Fu (傅), and all of them are members of the Wind-Blown Sand Gang based in the Hsinchu area, Huang said.
Meanwhile, Chen Wei-hua (陳樺韋) and Tu Shih-hung (涂世泓), who are alleged to be the leaders of an extortion ring that was responsible for killing three people and keeping about 60 people captive, were yesterday put in judicial detention, while another 21 suspects were detained following questioning and denied bail.
Criminal Investigation Bureau officials said background checks showed that Chen was a member of the Four Seas Gang and had a prior conviction involving fraud and money laundering, while Tu had been charged with drug trafficking and illegal confinement.
Huang said that police had arrested 10 suspects linked to two Taiwanese human trafficking rings that were duping people and sending them to Cambodia.
The suspects were members of the Bamboo Union, the Four Seas Gang, and the Heavenly Way Alliance — the nation’s three leading organized crime syndicates.
Bureau official Lai Chun-yao (賴俊堯) said most of the extortion and torture rings had members of these three gangs involved, as well as some regional gangs.
Lai said that a man surnamed Wu (吳), a member of the Bamboo Union’s Ming Ren chapter, went to Cambodia to coordinate with a Chinese triad, and had his family members place online adverts for high-paying jobs overseas that included free accommodation and three meals a day to entrap Taiwanese.
“Once they arrive at airports in Cambodia, the victims’ passports and personal papers are taken away. Then each are sold to detention facilities run by the Chinese triad, for the telecom fraud and extortion scam operations,” Lai said.
So far this year, police officials have reported receiving 693 calls for help from people who have been held captive in centers run by the Chinese triad in Southeast Asia.
Officials said that 315 Taiwanese have been reported missing and not yet returned home.
This story has been amended since it was first published.
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