Premier Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) yesterday touted law enforcement officials’ successes in cracking down on illegal drugs over the past year, which resulted in record seizures of narcotics.
“Prosecutors have over the past six years set up six task forces to coordinate the ‘Anti-Drug Notification Network’ to fight against narcotics,” Chen said during an inspection of the Criminal Investigation Bureau.
“The network succeeded in detecting and clamping down on drug trafficking rings, as well as their sales channels on social media and Web sites,” he said.
Photo: Tien Yu-hua, Taipei Times
“Drugs are the root of all evil,” Chen said, adding that “fighting against narcotics is paramount for safeguarding public safety. When we succeed in anti-drug campaigns, we are already halfway toward achieving a safe society.”
Judicial officials and law enforcement officers at a news conference presented 6,954kg of seized drugs, including FM2, ketamine and cathinone, as well as a mixture of chemical recreational drugs, commonly sold as “narcotic coffee powder,” along with cannabis plants and dried leaves.
National Police Agency chief Huang Ming-chao (黃明昭) said the drugs were seized during raids conducted between May and the end of December last year.
Law enforcement officers acted on tip-offs from members of the public and searched offices, stores and residences across Taiwan, Huang said.
The targets of raids included people who grew cannabis plants at home and on outdoor farms, he said.
Police raided various locations and seized 8,220 cannabis plants, 40,633 pouches of “narcotic coffee powder,” NT$91.29 million (US$3 million) in cash, 34 vehicles and 2,253 electronic devices, including mobile phones, computers and tablets.
The seizure of nearly 7 tonnes of drugs and 8,220 cannabis plants are the largest in recent years, Huang said.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS