In a recent case brought to the attention of police by a tip-off, officers were able to locate key evidence and indict 12 people thanks to an electronic storage device detection dog named Wafer, the Kaohsiung Police Department’s Criminal Investigation Corps said at a news conference on Thursday.
After conducting surveillance operations, officers in March raided three sites they suspected were being used as bases for money laundering.
During the raids, Wafer located two mobile phones that contained crucial evidence, police said.
Photo courtesy of the Kaohsiung Police Criminal Investigation Corps via CNA
Prosecutors arrested 12 people, who were then indicted.
A man surnamed Cheng (鄭), 39, rented premises in Kaohsiung and Pingtung County as bases to transfer illicit cash from overseas gambling and Ponzi scheme Web sites, using layers of transfers between overseas accounts to evade being tracked by the authorities, police said.
Cheng also recruited a man surnamed Su (蘇), 34, as his manager and 10 other people, promising them “high salary, low demand and no experience needed” in job advertisements, investigators said.
The 10 people worked shifts as customer service staff, investigations showed.
Police estimate the group laundered more than 4 trillion dong (US$157 million) over a six-month period.
An electronic device dog is trained to sniff out the chemical substance triphenylphosphine oxide found in electronic storage devices, which might contain evidence of criminal activity.
Wafer is Taiwan’s first and only electronic device dog.
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