Police yesterday said they are targeting weapons dealers and homemade firearms manufacturers, as officers assigned to both the March 19 shooting investigation and the search for fugitives Chang Hsi-ming (
Police are investigating people with access or connections to homemade 8mm and 9mm pistols or bullets in relation to the shooting of the president and the vice president. These were the two kinds of bullets used in the March 19 incident.
Related to the search for the outlows Chang and Chen, who are wanted after a gun battle in Tainan County in July, police recently identified a weapons dealer who allegedly provided weapons -- believed to include pistols, rifles and even grenades -- to the pair.
"By focusing on manufacturers and dealers, it will save us a lot of time investigating these two cases," said Tsai Hsiang-chun (蔡祥春), head of the Criminal Investigation Section of the Ta-an Precinct under the Taipei City Police Department.
To locate and arrest Chang and Chen, the National Police Agency's Criminal Investigation Bureau Secretary-General Frank Chiu (
Tsai just joined the team as he was recently promoted. He will become the new deputy detective of the Fourth Division next month.
"We have located a gun dealer and he allegedly helped Chang and Chen with weapons," Tsai said.
"We are waiting to collect more evidence before we bring this guy downtown."
According to the precinct, Tsai was promoted and invited to join the team because of his experience investigating complicated criminal cases.
In addition to many kidnapping cases, he was the lead officer in the Chu Mei-feng (璩美鳳) sex-VCD case, as well as the sex case of former Chinese Nationalist Party lawmaker Huang Hsien-chou (
In the meantime, the precinct also arrested Chang Ching-cheng (
Tsai said postal workers noted that the parts were "weird" when the package went through the X-ray machine, so they notified police immediately.
Police officers arrived at Chang Ching-cheng's residence with the postal worker and arrested him when he signed for the package.
Chang Ching-cheng told police he bought the pistol parts from Ebay web sites in the US and Germany and paid for them in US dollars. He said he was simply curious and ordered the parts to see if he could assemble them.
Police said a 9mm pistol can cost approximately NT$200,000 if bought illegally, but that Chang Ching-cheng had only spent approximately NT$10,000 for the parts.
"Mail order through the Internet will become a big [loop]hole for us when it comes to illegal weapons," Tsai said.
National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology (NKUST) yesterday promised it would increase oversight of use of Chinese in course materials, following a social media outcry over instances of simplified Chinese characters being used, including in a final exam. People on Threads wrote that simplified Chinese characters were used on a final exam and in a textbook for a translation course at the university, while the business card of a professor bore the words: “Taiwan Province, China.” Photographs of the exam, the textbook and the business card were posted with the comments. NKUST said that other members of the faculty did not see
The Taipei City Government yesterday said contractors organizing its New Year’s Eve celebrations would be held responsible after a jumbo screen played a Beijing-ran television channel near the event’s end. An image showing China Central Television (CCTV) Channel 3 being displayed was posted on the social media platform Threads, sparking an outcry on the Internet over Beijing’s alleged political infiltration of the municipal government. A Taipei Department of Information and Tourism spokesman said event workers had made a “grave mistake” and that the Television Broadcasts Satellite (TVBS) group had the contract to operate the screens. The city would apply contractual penalties on TVBS
A new board game set against the backdrop of armed conflict around Taiwan is to be released next month, amid renewed threats from Beijing, inviting players to participate in an imaginary Chinese invasion 20 years from now. China has ramped up military activity close to Taiwan in the past few years, including massing naval forces around the nation. The game, titled 2045, tasks players with navigating the troubles of war using colorful action cards and role-playing as characters involved in operations 10 days before a fictional Chinese invasion of Taiwan. That includes members of the armed forces, Chinese sleeper agents and pro-China politicians
The lowest temperature in a low-lying area recorded early yesterday morning was in Miaoli County’s Gongguan Township (公館), at 6.8°C, due to a strong cold air mass and the effect of radiative cooling, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. In other areas, Chiayi’s East District (東區) recorded a low of 8.2°C and Yunlin County’s Huwei Township (虎尾) recorded 8.5°C, CWA data showed. The cold air mass was at its strongest from Saturday night to the early hours of yesterday. It brought temperatures down to 9°C to 11°C in areas across the nation and the outlying Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties,
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