Prosecutors in Penghu County yesterday said that eight suspects had been indicted for attempting to smuggle marijuana with a street value of NT$1.1 billion (US$33.93 million) into Taiwan.
The Penghu District Prosecutors' Office said in a news release they had completed a two-month investigation into a drug smuggling ring that planned to use Penghu as a relay point to move 687kg of marijuana into Taiwan proper.
Photo courtesy of the Coast Guard Administration via CNA
The chief suspect in the drug smuggling scheme, a man surnamed Ko (柯), was indicted for contraventions of the Narcotics Hazard Prevention Act (毒品危害防制條例) along with seven other accomplices, the office said.
Photo courtesy of the Coast Guard Administration via CNA
Authorities had received a tip-off that criminals were planning to hide drugs in shipping containers around the Mid-Autumn Festival in September.
A taskforce led by Penghu Chief Prosecutor Kuo Geng-cheng (郭耿誠) was formed, including personnel from the office, the Coast Guard Administration, the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau and various local police departments.
The smugglers first received the drug shipment from a Chinese fishing vessel in waters southwest of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan's southernmost point, in early September, the release said.
They then transported the narcotics back to Penghu County on their vessel, where they loaded the cargo into an empty shipping container that had earlier been placed in an alley in Magong City (馬公).
Two suspects surnamed Hsu (許) and Huang (黃) commissioned a freight company to transport the drug-laden container to Jianshan Wharf in the county, where they planned to put the container onto a vessel to transport it to Taiwan's main island, prosecutors said.
However, the law enforcement taskforce had been monitoring the smugglers' operations.
When law enforcement officials seized the shipping container, they found 26 large bags of marijuana inside, worth an estimated street value of about NT$1.1 billion.
Follow-up actions conducted in September and last month led to further arrests as well as the seizure of the Taiwanese fishing vessel used in the operation.
Ko, Hsu and Huang, along with other suspects surnamed Liang (梁), Chen (陳), Yan (顏) and Chen (陳) charged with transporting Category Two narcotics under Article 4 of the Narcotics Hazard Prevention Act, which carries a sentence of 10 years to life.
Another suspect, also surnamed Chen (陳), was charged under Article 164 of the Criminal Code for harboring a fugitive, prosecutors said.
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