The body of a third person who allegedly died while being held by a local extortion ring that kidnapped and tortured dozens of people was found on Sunday on a roadway slope in Nantou County, the New Taipei City Police Department said.
During a raid on a criminal gang in Taoyuan’s Jhongli District (中壢) on Friday, police found 32 men and women who had been held prisoner, while information found on computers seized at the scene indicated that another three people had died in captivity, police said.
The remains of two of the three deceased were found in mountainous areas in Taoyuan’s Gueishan District (龜山), police said on Saturday.
On Sunday, the body believed to be that of the third victim was found in a suitcase on a mountain road near the 74.4km mark of Provincial Highway No. 21, police said.
The remains were later identified by a forensic expert to be that of a man surnamed Huang (黃), 38, who is believed to have died after falling from the 11th floor of a building last month, they said.
Huang’s remains were taken to the mountain road near Sun Moon Lake in Nantou County, police said, citing a suspect connected to the criminal ring.
The deaths of the three people were linked to the criminal organization, which allegedly kidnapped and forcibly detained jobseekers after luring them with offers of high-paying jobs, police said.
Police have arrested at least 20 suspects, including three in charge of abandoning the bodies of the three deceased.
A main suspect, identified as Chen Wei-hua (陳樺韋), 35, has been detained and held incommunicado after the Shilin District Court granted a request by prosecutors on Sunday.
Police have identified the two deceased in Gueishan as a 45-year-old woman surnamed Huang (黃) and a 57-year-old man surnamed Lin (林).
The two bodies have been moved to a government-run funeral parlor in Taoyuan for an autopsy to determine the cause of death, police said.
Police first conducted a raid in New Taipei City’s Tamsui District (淡水) on Wednesday last week and rescued 26 captives, and carried out another raid in Jhongli on Friday where another 32 captives were found, New Taipei City police said.
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