The suspect in an execution-style murder of a businessman in New Taipei City’s Sindian District (新店) has fled to China and officials are negotiating his extradition, the New Taipei City Police Department said on Tuesday.
The suspect, surnamed Huang (黃), took a flight from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport at 2pm on that day to Xiamen, where he is staying in a quarantine hotel, as required by Chinese COVID-19 regulations, the department said.
Investigators accuse Huang of shooting dead a local coffee trader surnamed He (何) on a street near his residence when he was returning from dropping off his daughter at her school.
The gunman fired four shots at the victim, striking him twice in the neck and once in the head, police said.
His neighbors initially dismissed the gunshots as firecrackers, but called an ambulance, as they suspected that He had collapsed on the street due to a stroke, police said.
Local media reported that He was in 2015 detained after investigators suspected that he was involved in trading drug precursors.
The charges were dropped after a deferred prosecution agreement, media reported.
On Tuesday, police said that surveillance footage showed the suspect fleeing the scene by vehicle to a nearby retail venue, where he left behind the vehicle, changed his clothes and took a taxi to Longshan Temple MRT Station in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華).
He then changed his clothes again and took another taxi to the airport, which he left on XiamenAir Flight MF-888, police said.
Investigators have retrieved what they believe to be the gun used in the shooting from a roadside ditch near the airport, police said.
Huang, who is in his 30s, has prior convictions for charges related to drugs, weapons, negligent injury and fraud, but no known connection to organized crime, they said.
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