A suspicious package that had been sent from Taiwan to a South Korean care home was found to have originated in China, the Taipei Mission in Korea said on Friday.
Based on information provided by Taiwan’s Customs Administration, the package was confirmed to have been sent from China and transshipped to South Korea by Taiwan’s state-run postal service Chunghwa Post Co, the mission said in a statement.
The Taipei mission said it will continue to work with South Korean authorities on the matter and share the results of the probe with the police and other agencies in the country.
Photo: Screen grab from Korean Broadcasting System
The incident was discovered after three Ulsan care home staffers who opened the package on Thursday began experiencing dizziness and difficulty breathing, and they were subsequently hospitalized for treatment.
The package has since been handed over to the South Korean Agency for Defense Development for further examination.
The package had been sent by surface mail from China, then sorted through Chunghwa Post’s freight forwarding center during a stopover in Taiwan, Taiwan’s Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said.
Without entering customs, it was later transshipped directly to South Korea via air mail, the CIB said.
POLICE WARNING
In a Yonhap News Agency report yesterday, South Korean police called for vigilance against suspicious international parcels, saying that such packages could be yellow or black, and they could have “Chunghwa Post” written on them.
The sender could be Post Office Box 100561-003777, Taipei, Taiwan, the report said.
Chunghwa Post has provided information to South Korean authorities after it was informed of the matter, the Chunghwa’s deputy chief of mail business and operations Lin Li-fu (林立富) said.
Lin said the company has temporarily suspended transshipping packages destined for South Korea from freight forwarders, as the police investigation continues.
Due to China’s insufficient postal capacity, international packages from that country often go through Taiwan before being forwarded to their final destination, the company said.
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