Two Vietnamese men were arrested for receiving 2.2kg of dried cannabis flower worth NT$3 million (US$99,837) via international package, the Criminal Investigation Bureau said yesterday.
The suspects, surnamed Vo and Ngo, were arrested on May 22 and June 2 respectively, after Taipei Customs reported finding the drugs in a package from Thailand on May 15, the bureau told a news conference.
Photo courtesy of the Criminal Investigation Bureau
It said the customs officials flagged the package as "suspicious" following an X-ray inspection, and opened the package to find two cookie boxes with nine packages of cannabis flower inside.
Police followed the package and arrested Vo, 31, who had collected it, at a factory in Changhua County.
Vo claimed a friend had asked him to retrieve the package for someone else and denied knowing it contained cannabis, police said.
After further investigation, police discovered that Ngo, 37, planned to collect the package from Vo at his residence and arrested him in Taipei.
Ngo claimed he had "asked a friend to send medicine from overseas" and denied both knowing Vo and knowing that the package contained illicit drugs, the bureau said.
Ngo, an absconded migrant worker, was already wanted by authorities in Taipei for drug, fraud and money laundering offenses, the bureau added.
The suspects have been detained incommunicado, the bureau said.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday said it had deployed patrol vessels to expel a China Coast Guard ship and a Chinese fishing boat near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. The China Coast Guard vessel was 28 nautical miles (52km) northeast of Pratas at 6:15am on Thursday, approaching the island’s restricted waters, which extend 24 nautical miles from its shoreline, the CGA’s Dongsha-Nansha Branch said in a statement. The Tainan, a 2,000-tonne cutter, was deployed by the CGA to shadow the Chinese ship, which left the area at 2:39pm on Friday, the statement said. At 6:31pm on Friday,
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, would pose a steep challenge to Taiwan’s ability to defend itself against a full-scale invasion, a defense expert said yesterday. Institute of National Defense and Security Research analyst Chieh Chung (揭仲) made the comment hours after the PLAN confirmed the carrier recently passed through the Taiwan Strait to conduct “scientific research tests and training missions” in the South China Sea. China has two carriers in operation — the Liaoning and the Shandong — with the Fujian undergoing sea trials. Although the PLAN needs time to train the Fujian’s air wing and
Taiwanese celebrities Hank Chen (陳漢典) and Lulu Huang (黃路梓茵) announced yesterday that they are planning to marry. Huang announced and posted photos of their engagement to her social media pages yesterday morning, joking that the pair were not just doing marketing for a new show, but “really getting married.” “We’ve decided to spend all of our future happy and hilarious moments together,” she wrote. The announcement, which was later confirmed by the talent agency they share, appeared to come as a surprise even to those around them, with veteran TV host Jacky Wu (吳宗憲) saying he was “totally taken aback” by the news. Huang,
The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) put Taiwan in danger, Ma Ying-jeou Foundation director Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑) said yesterday, hours after the de facto US embassy said that Beijing had misinterpreted World War II-era documents to isolate Taiwan. The AIT’s comments harmed the Republic of China’s (ROC) national interests and contradicted a part of the “six assurances” stipulating that the US would not change its official position on Taiwan’s sovereignty, Hsiao said. The “six assurances,” which were given by then-US president Ronald Reagan to Taiwan in 1982, say that Washington would not set a date for ending arm sales to Taiwan, consult
RSS