The National Police Administra-tion's Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) yesterday launched its first nationwide crackdown against gangs since Commissioner Hou You-yi (
In yesterday's crackdown, six members of the Bamboo Union, one of the nation's major organized crime groups, were arrested.
The crackdown focused on the gang's "Panther Division," which operates mainly in Hsintien, Yungho, Chungho and Wulai in Taipei County.
The Panther Division has become the most active part of the gang following previous crackdowns that forced the Bamboo Union's leader, Chen Chi-li (陳啟禮), to flee to Cambodia in 1996.
"To destroy a gang, you have to capture its leaders first," Hou said. "The [Panther Division] is now the strongest division of the union, so destroying it has become our priority."
Law enforcement officers from the Panchiao District Prosecutors' Office, the Taipei City Police Department's Chungshan Precinct and the Ministry of Justice's Bureau of Investigation (BOI) cooperated with the CIB in the crackdown, although police refused to say exactly how many officers are involved.
"The entire operation began in March this year, when the BOI received tips about the criminal activities of the Panther Division," Hou said. "We decided to wait patiently for nearly half a year until we could catch up with each move of the suspects."
The Panther Division has been linked with casinos, drug dealing, selling firearms and blackmail. Police also discovered that mem-bers of the division were trying to invite high-school students to join by luring them with drugs and cash. The police estimate that the Panther Division has about 300 members, most of them juveniles.
Police yesterday arrested the Panther Division's leader, Tseng Chien-sheng (曾建生), deputy leader Feng Chien-hsiung (馮建雄), lower-level leaders Tseng Wei-hsun (曾葦薰), Tsai Ching-lung (蔡慶隆) and Jen Chen-jen (任振任) and Yungho City Resident Representative Lee Hsun-hsiang (李訓祥).
The six were arrested at two locations -- a restaurant in Hsintien and Tseng Chien-sheng's residence in Yungho, where officers also discovered four pistols, one bullet, a shotgun, a baseball bat, an accounting record of the gang and 47 T-shirts with a panther logo, thought to be the gang members' "uniform."
The police said the suspects were transferred to the prosecutors' office for further interrogation and will be listed as national hooligans.
Law enforcement agencies are also investigating the gang's sources of income with a view to starving it of funds.
"Now that its major leaders have been arrested, we will begin to take away the gang's means of survival, so it will fall apart automatically," Hou said.
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