The Supreme Court has upheld a sentence of 10 years and six months for a former police officer convicted of helping and protecting a drug smuggler.
After having previously sent the case back to the High Court on appeal, the Supreme Court on Thursday last week said the latest judgement by the High Court was appropriate and turned down the appeal by the officer, surnamed Wu (吳). The verdict is final.
Wu, a member of the Third Special Police Corps in charge of inspecting imported tobacco and alcohol, colluded with a drug smuggler surnamed Lin (林) in 2018 and 2019 to smuggle 1,000 packs of ketamine and 500 packs of amphetamines into Taiwan from Vietnam, court documents showed.
Photo: Chang Wen-chuan, Taipei Times
Lin promised Wu NT$10 million (US$318,553) if the smuggling operation was successful, the documents showed.
Originally, they packed 1,000 packs of ketamine in a shipping container holding powdered lime for use in the steel industry and gave the name of a steel producer as the importer to avoid detection at Taiwan’s border.
However, the container never made it out of Vietnam in December 2018 after customs officials there called the Vietnamese contact for the shipment and the steel company in Taiwan listed on the shipping documents, without getting an answer.
Wu and Lin tried again in January 2019, this time using the name of a timber company.
Lin added 500kg of amphetamines to the container, bringing the total size of the shipment to 1,500kg, with the drugs packed between particle boards.
When the shipping containers arrived, Wu discovered that the police and Kaohsiung Customs were about to open and inspect the two containers and told Lin not to claim the goods.
When nobody claimed the containers, law enforcement officials conducted an investigation, which led to the arrest of Wu and Lin.
In the first trial, the Ciaotou District Court in Kaohsiung sentenced Wu to 12 years in jail for forgery and taking a bribe, and also stripped him of his civil rights for eight years.
Wu appealed the case, but the High Court upheld the verdict.
Wu filed another appeal, with the Supreme Court upholding a jail term of one year and six months for Wu for the forgery charges.
However, it asked the lower court to review Wu’s bribery conviction after Wu only admitted to committing some of the offenses.
Considering that Wu did not actually receive the bribe he was promised, the High Court reduced his total sentence to 10 years and six months.
Following the decision, Wu filed an appeal. It was rejected by the Supreme Court, which also upheld the High Court’s decision to deprive him of his civil rights for eight years.
Lin was handed a 12-year jail sentence for drug trafficking.
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