A man who attempted to swim from Kinmen County to China to avoid serving a prison sentence has been jailed after being intercepted by Coast Guard Administration officers, prosecutors said yesterday.
The 38-year-old man, a convict surnamed Lu (盧), had been banned from traveling, the Kinmen District Prosecutors’ Office said.
On Sunday, he attempted to flee by swimming across waters off Lieyu Township (烈嶼) using snorkeling equipment, the office said.
Photo courtesy of the Coast Guard Administration’s Kinmen-Matsu-Penghu branch
Officers from the Kinmen-Matsu-Penghu branch of the coast guard monitoring surveillance systems spotted Lu in coastal waters off Guishan Beach (貴山) at about 10:50pm, it said.
A joint land-and-sea operation was launched, and Lu was intercepted by a patrol boat at 12:05am on Monday, about 0.8 nautical miles (1.48km) northwest of Guishan, within Taiwan-controlled waters, it said, adding that he was arrested and taken into custody.
Lu had been sentenced to seven years and six months in prison in a fraud case, which is under appeal, and was also facing a separate finalized sentence for contravening the Personal Data Protection Act (個人資料保護法), prosecutors said.
He had been ordered to report to prison yesterday to begin serving that sentence, they said.
Instead, Lu attempted to flee to China, indicating an intent to evade serving his sentence, prosecutors said.
Following his apprehension at sea, prosecutors issued an arrest warrant and, after questioning, transferred him to prison to begin serving his sentence.
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