The chief suspect in an attack on a Taipei restaurant involving the release of 1,000 live cockroaches was detained and held incommunicado yesterday, while bail was set at NT$50,000 each for his three alleged accomplices.
The Taipei District Court granted prosecutors’ request to detain the 26-year-old chief suspect, surnamed Wu (吳), but declined requests to detain his co-suspects, surnamed Tsao (曹), Hsu (許) and Tsai (蔡), who are in their early 20s.
The four men, who were arrested on Tuesday during raids in Taipei and New Taipei City, along with a female minor who was later released, said they had been hired to “persuade” the owner of the restaurant to settle a debt with an unidentified creditor.
After interrogating the men, the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office on Wednesday filed requests to have them detained on suspicion of using threats or violence at a public gathering, citing the risk that they might try to collude with each other or flee if they were granted bail.
At their detention hearings late on Wednesday and early yesterday, the four suspects told the court that after seeing media reports about the attack, they contacted each other and decided to go into hiding in Taichung.
However, because of media coverage of the incident, they were unable to find accommodation in Taichung and decided to return by car to Taipei, the court said, adding that three of the suspects said they had disposed of their phones to avoid being tracked.
A major piece remains missing in the case, as prosecutors have yet to identify the person who directed the attack, the court said.
At his detention hearing, Wu told the court that he did not know the name or address of the person who hired him, as they had only communicated via a messaging app and that he had discarded his phone.
Wu said he had initially contacted the person to borrow money and that he agreed to carry out the attack when the person promised him 20 to 30 percent of the profit on any debts they recover.
He said the person also made an advance payment of NT$16,000 to Tsao and Hsu.
The court said it ordered Wu’s detention because it believes he knows and might be trying to protect the mastermind behind the attack and could try to collude with them if he were granted bail.
As for the three other suspects, the court said that although they pose a flight risk, several mitigating factors — including their relative youth, their minor roles in the attack and their clean records — did not justify pretrial detention.
The attack took place at the G House Taipei restaurant on Xinsheng N Road, just before 7:30pm on Monday.
The suspects, dressed in black, allegedly entered the restaurant and threw more than 1,000 small cockroaches into the air near a counter on the second floor, before fleeing in a vehicle and on a scooter.
Wu said they had purchased the cockroaches — a variety commonly used by aquarists as fish food — for NT$10,000 from an aquarium shop in New Taipei City, before dividing them into three bags and driving to the restaurant.
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