A Chinese national suspected of making hundreds of bomb threats against multiple locations in Taiwan has been tracked down by the authorities in China, following a request from Taiwan for judicial assistance, a National Police Agency (NPA) official said on Thursday.
The suspect, Zhang Haichuan (張海川), was questioned by Chinese police on May 5, but denied using the name of a former Taiwanese legislator to make the threats, NPA Assistant Director-General Chou Yu-wei (周幼偉) said.
Chou was briefing the legislature’s Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee on the ongoing case that involved a series of bomb threats against government agencies, tourist sites and public transport stations in Taiwan, many of which were sent from someone claiming to be “Karasawa Takahiro.”
Photo courtesy of Hsinchu County Police
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Tang Hui-jen (湯蕙禎) asked whether the NPA has a grasp of Zhang’s movements in China, or whether there had been any copycat threats.
Chou said that the authorities in Taiwan and China were continuing their cooperation in exchanging information and intelligence through the Cross-Strait Joint Crime-Fighting and Judicial Mutual Assistance Agreement.
At present, most of the bomb threats are believed to be the work of Zhang, Chou added.
Zhang, a Chinese national, pursued graduate studies in Taiwan from 2016 to 2021, but returned to China after being indicted on charges of sending threatening e-mails to a female classmate.
Taiwanese authorities later issued an arrest warrant for Zhang after he failed to respond to prosecutors’ summons, the Criminal Investigation Bureau said.
The bureau last week said that the e-mailed bomb threats might have come from overseas and it was likely the person was using a virtual private network to conceal their identity and location.
The bureau in the statement on Thursday said that it has provided related information and data to China through the joint crime-fighting agreement and had asked Chinese authorities to deal with the cases related to Zhang in accordance with the law.
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