Eight people have been indicted for attempting to smuggle a large amount of marijuana into Taiwan, the Penghu County Prosecutors’ Office said in a statement on Tuesday.
Prosecutors had completed a two-month investigation into an alleged drug smuggling ring that planned to use Penghu as a relay point to move 687kg of marijuana into Taiwan proper, the office said, adding that the shipment had a street value of NT$1.1 billion (US$33.85 million).
The chief suspect in the scheme, a man surnamed Ko (柯), and seven others were indicted over alleged contraventions of the Narcotics Hazard Prevention Act (毒品危害防制條例) and on other charges, the statement said.
Photo courtesy of the Coast Guard Administration via CNA
Authorities in September received a tip-off about plans to hide drugs in shipping containers, it said.
A task force led by Penghu Chief Prosecutor Kuo Geng-cheng (郭耿誠) was formed of personnel from the office, the Coast Guard Administration, the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau and local police departments.
The drugs were delivered by a Chinese fishing vessel in waters southwest of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), the southernmost point of Taiwan proper, in early September, the statement said.
They were transported to Penghu and loaded into an empty shipping container in an alley in Magong City (馬公), it said.
Two suspects, surnamed Hsu (許) and Huang (黃), commissioned a freight company to transport the container to Jianshan Commercial Harbor (尖山商港) in Husi Township (湖西), where they planned to put the container onto a vessel to transport it to Taiwan proper, the office said.
However, the law enforcement task force had been monitoring the operations, it said.
Officers seized the shipping container and found 26 large bags of marijuana inside, it said.
There were more arrests in September and last month, while the Taiwanese fishing vessel was seized, it said.
Ko, Hsu and Huang, as well as four other suspects, surnamed Liang (梁) and Yan (顏), and two Chens (陳), were charged with transporting Category Two narcotics under Article 4 of the act, which carries a sentence of 10 years to life in prison.
Another suspect, also surnamed Chen (陳), was charged under Article 164 of the Criminal Code for harboring a fugitive, prosecutors said.
The case is the first involving marijuana smuggled in a shipping container in Penghu County, they said.
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