A total of 52 people, including 36 foreigners, were arrested on Thursday during a raid on a sex trafficking operation in Taipei, police said yesterday.
Acting on a tip-off, a team of about 100 police officers surrounded a building on Kangding Road in the city’s Wanhua District (萬華) at 6pm before entering with search and arrest warrants, police officials told a media briefing.
During the raid, 10 Taiwanese suspected of operating the sex trafficking ring were arrested, along with 42 suspected sex workers — 28 from Thailand, six from Vietnam, two from China and six Taiwanese, police said.
Photo courtesy of the Taipei City Police Department via CNA
Police also seized accounting ledgers and other evidence from the scene, said Chen Wei-jen (陳偉仁), head of an investigation squad at the Wanhua Precinct.
The 10 Taiwanese suspected of running the prostitution ring have been handed over to the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office for investigation, while the foreign suspected sex workers are being held in detention by immigration authorities pending deportation based on the findings of the probe, Chen said.
The six Taiwanese suspected sex workers would be charged under the Social Order Maintenance Act (社會秩序維護法), Chen added.
The foreigners entered Taiwan on tourist visas and were inhumanely exploited by the sex trafficking ring, police said.
The alleged sex traffickers were luring women from overseas to Taiwan with offers of work at massage and beauty parlors, but were coercing them into prostitution on arrival, police said.
INVESTIGATION: The case is the latest instance of a DPP figure being implicated in an espionage network accused of allegedly leaking information to Chinese intelligence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) member Ho Jen-chieh (何仁傑) was detained and held incommunicado yesterday on suspicion of spying for China during his tenure as assistant to then-minister of foreign affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮). The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said Ho was implicated during its investigation into alleged spying activities by former Presidential Office consultant Wu Shang-yu (吳尚雨). Prosecutors said there is reason to believe Ho breached the National Security Act (國家安全法) by leaking classified Ministry of Foreign Affairs information to Chinese intelligence. Following interrogation, prosecutors petitioned the Taipei District Court to detain Ho, citing concerns over potential collusion or tampering of evidence. The
Seventy percent of middle and elementary schools now conduct English classes entirely in English, the Ministry of Education said, as it encourages schools nationwide to adopt this practice Minister of Education (MOE) Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) is scheduled to present a report on the government’s bilingual education policy to the Legislative Yuan’s Education and Culture Committee today. The report would outline strategies aimed at expanding access to education, reducing regional disparities and improving talent cultivation. Implementation of bilingual education policies has varied across local governments, occasionally drawing public criticism. For example, some schools have required teachers of non-English subjects to pass English proficiency
‘FORM OF PROTEST’: The German Institute Taipei said it was ‘shocked’ to see Nazi symbolism used in connection with political aims as it condemned the incident Sung Chien-liang (宋建樑), who led efforts to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lee Kun-cheng (李坤城), was released on bail of NT$80,000 yesterday amid an outcry over a Nazi armband he wore to questioning the night before. Sung arrived at the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office for questioning in a recall petition forgery case on Tuesday night wearing a red armband bearing a swastika, carrying a copy of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf and giving a Nazi salute. Sung left the building at 1:15am without the armband and apparently covering the book with a coat. This is a serious international scandal and Chinese
NEGOTIATIONS: The US response to the countermeasures and plans Taiwan presented has been positive, including boosting procurement and investment, the president said Taiwan is included in the first group for trade negotiations with the US, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday, as he seeks to shield Taiwanese exporters from a 32 percent tariff. In Washington, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said in an interview on Fox News on Thursday that he would speak to his Taiwanese and Israeli counterparts yesterday about tariffs after holding a long discussion with the Vietnamese earlier. US President Donald Trump on Wednesday postponed punishing levies on multiple trade partners, including Taiwan, for three months after trillions of US dollars were wiped off global markets. He has maintained a 10 percent
RSS