The Taipei City Police Department said Friday it has cracked the biggest amphetamine case in recent years, with the drugs seized in the case valued at over NT$2 billion (US$72 million).
At a press conference held by the department’s Criminal Investigation Division, Taipei Police Commissioner Yang Yuan-ming (???) said the case dated back to the last few months of 2021, culminating to the arrest of two individuals surnamed Chen (?) and Lu (?) on Nov. 1, 2021.
It was not disclosed until Friday, however, because police continued the investigation while detaining Chen and Lu, and it was not until recently that they got a clear enough picture of the situation to disclose the case publicly.
According to Yang, Chen was the main person of interest and was the target of a joint task force investigation that was conducted in September 2021.
After looking through the evidence collected that month, police came to suspect that an organized drug ring was using a fishing boat to smuggle drugs into Taiwan through an Yilan County port, he said.
They were tipped off by multiple records of Chen, 47, and Lu, a seaman aged 40, arriving back at Wushi Harbor in Yilan’s Toucheng Township after being out at sea without declaring that they caught any fish.
Because both of them had histories of drug-related misdemeanors, the authorities decided to launch a further investigation into their activities to build a case.
After collecting more evidence, police concluded that the duo were using a fishing vessel to go out to sea to buy drugs from foreign drug dealers to smuggle back into Taiwan.
When Chen and Lu departed the harbor at the end of October last year, the task force got a search warrant to search their vessel when it returned on Nov. 1, and task force members found drugs in a hidden compartment built in the boat’s deck.
Police said that the compartment was made of glass fiber reinforced plastic to mask the smell from drug dogs, because the resin used in the material emits a strong enough smell to throw the canines off.
Random objects were also scattered around the hidden compartment to further mask its location, they said.
During the search, police recovered around 650 bags of amphetamines, weighing approximately 720 kilograms, which they estimated as being worth over NT$2 billion, Yang said.
After Chen and Lu were arrested, Chen revealed under questioning how the operation worked, according to police.
He said he would first send photos of the serial numbers of the NT$100 bills he would use to buy the drugs to the sellers.
Then, once at sea, flashes of light would be used for the two parties to identify each other and meet up, and the sellers would reconfirm Chen’s identity by checking the bills’ serial numbers to clear the way for the transaction.
Police went on to add that after exchanging intelligence related to the case with American authorities, it is believed that Chen might be working for a domestic crime organization.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel