The Taoyuan District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday charged a Chinese man with illegally entering Taiwan with his son on a rubber boat in May.
Forty-one-year-old Song Yuankun (宋元坤) was charged with violating the Immigration Act (入出國及移民法), while his 17-year-old son would be referred to the Juvenile Court, the office said.
Additionally, prosecutors confiscated the equipment they used, and asked for aggravated sentencing for Song based on the Protection of Children and Youths Welfare and Rights Act (兒童及少年福利與權益保障法), which stipulates that adults who commit crimes with minors would be subject to an increase in their sentence of up to 50 percent.
Photo: Yu Jui-jen, Taipei Times
An investigation found that Song, who worked as a laborer in China’s Yunnan Province, believed that Taiwan was “prosperous” and wanted to bring his son, who works as a hairdresser, to Taiwan to study, according to the indictment.
The pair set out for Taiwan at about 6am on May 15 in an inflatable rubber boat with an outboard motor, which they had purchased from a Chinese online shopping site, it said.
The two left Yunnan and picked up their boat in Fujian Province. They departed from Junshan Village on Pingtan Island, about 68 nautical miles (125km) from Taiwan proper, and arrived at the beach next to the Guantang LNG Terminal in Taoyuan’s Guanyin District (觀音) at about 5:30pm the same day, the indictment said.
After arriving in Taiwan, they withdrew cash with a UnionPay card for dinner, but ran out of money and turned themselves in at about 8am the next day at the Guanyin police station, the indictment said.
Prosecutors and police investigated whether the two had any intention of espionage, but ruled out suspicions they were spying or asserting Chinese sovereignty after the father and son passed polygraph tests, it said.
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