The Criminal Investigation Bureau on Monday announced the seizure of 313.85kg of amphetamines worth an estimated NT$250 million (US$7.74 million) from an unregistered manufacturer.
The bureau raided a site in Nantou County’s Puli Township (埔里) in late July, arresting suspects including the accused ringleader, Lee Chia-wen (李家文), in Pingtung County and New Taipei City.
It was the largest bust of an amphetamine lab in Taiwan’s history, it said.
Photo: Hsu Kuo-chen, Taipei Times
Lee allegedly hired Lu Yue-hua (呂岳樺) to make amphetamine using ephedrine, which is commonly used in drugs to treat colds, the bureau said.
Nine people have been indicted, while Lee, Lu and five others were detained, it said.
A skilled chemist can produce 1kg of amphetamine from ephedrine extracted from about 20,000 cold pills, while a less skilled chemist might need 30,000 to 40,000 pills, it said.
The amount of amphetamine seized would have required about 6.26 million cold pills to manufacture, it said.
With cold pills costing about NT$10 each, he would have spent about NT$60 million, it said.
Lu was wanted for failing to appear for a six-year prison sentence he was given in 2020, the bureau said.
Lee purchased vehicles to transport goods and machinery for the factory using family members’ names, it said, adding that when he became suspicious that police were tracking them, he bought more than 50 more second-hand vehicles.
The bureau said it would determine whether Lee had connections with pharmaceutical companies or pharmacies.
Lee told police in a statement that he had “made a small fortune” in gambling and wanted to “diversify his investments” by entering the drug-making businesses, it said.
Lee told police that he had obtained the cold medicine through partners and friends, it added.
Costa Rica sent a group of intelligence officials to Taiwan for a short-term training program, the first time the Central American country has done so since the countries ended official diplomatic relations in 2007, a Costa Rican media outlet reported last week. Five officials from the Costa Rican Directorate of Intelligence and Security last month spent 23 days in Taipei undergoing a series of training sessions focused on national security, La Nacion reported on Friday, quoting unnamed sources. The Costa Rican government has not confirmed the report. The Chinese embassy in Costa Rica protested the news, saying in a statement issued the same
Taiwan’s Liu Ming-i, right, who also goes by the name Ray Liu, poses with a Chinese Taipei flag after winning the gold medal in the men’s physique 170cm competition at the International Fitness and Bodybuilding Federation Asian Championship in Ajman, United Arab Emirates, yesterday.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
RSS