The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday confirmed that a Taiwanese man, who was last year sent to serve in the Taiwan Technical Mission to Saint Lucia, was arrested in the US for allegedly setting up an online platform to sell drugs.
The man, surnamed Lin (林) and who was scheduled to finish his stint in Saint Lucia on July 4, is being investigated in the US, the ministry said, adding that it is closely monitoring the situation.
Media reports indicated that 23-year-old Lin was arrested in the US for allegedly selling drugs on a “dark Web” platform named “Incognito Market,” which he established.
Photo: Taipei Times file
Ministry spokesman Jeff Liu (劉永健) said that Lin was arrested on Sunday in New York while in transit.
He was in Saint Lucia after applying to perform alternative military service last year based on his information technology expertise, Liu said.
Lin was sent to the Caribbean island country on Nov. 3 after passing a review and had behaved normally during his service, cooperating fully with the work of the technical mission, he said.
Before the end of his term, Lin took an approved vacation and left Saint Lucia on Saturday, he said, adding that Lin was transiting through New York on his way to Singapore when he was arrested by the police.
In a US Department of Justice news release issued on Monday, US Attorney General Merrick Garland described Incognito Market as a “dark Web” scheme to traffic deadly drugs to the US and the world.
Incognito Market was formed in October 2020 and was closed in March after selling more than US$100 million of narcotics — including hundreds of kilograms of cocaine and methamphetamines, the statement said.
In exchange for listing and selling narcotics on the platform, suppliers paid a commission of 5 percent of their sales to Incognito Market, it said.
That revenue funded the platform’s operations, including for computer servers and “employee” salaries, while Lin collected millions of dollars in profit, it said.
If convicted, Lin faces a mandatory minimum sentence of life in prison for engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, it said.
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