The Keelung District Prosecutor's Office investigated the case of smuggling 65 metric tons of Chinese frozen tripe by Chinese captain Yang and other 5 crew members. Today, Yang and 5 people were prosecuted for violating the smuggling regulations and other crimes.

(Photo by reporter Lin Jiadong)

[Reporter Lin Jiadong/Keelung Report] The Keelung District Prosecutor’s Office investigated the case of smuggling 65 tons of frozen tripe from China by five crew members including a Chinese captain surnamed Yang. After detaining Yang Nan and other five people in the middle of last month, the investigation was concluded in less than a month. ; The Keelung District Prosecutor's Office prosecuted five people including Yang on charges of violating the smuggling regulations.

This rare case of smuggling 65 metric tons of frozen tripe by a Chinese fishing boat occurred in mid-September last year. The northern branch of the Coast Guard received a tip-off that a Chinese fishing boat without a name was sailing slowly and suspiciously off the coast of Hsinchu, my country. Dispatch freshwater sea patrol team to intercept.

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The sea patrol team boarded and inspected the cabin and found a large number of frozen tripe in the freezer. The cartons were printed with simplified Chinese characters. They suspected that the captain surnamed Yang and 4 people surnamed Lin, Chen, Wang and Chen The crew, who came to Taiwan from smuggling frozen tripe from China, were seized by the Coast Guard before they could be connected to the fishing boat, and they were detained in the detention room of Wanlima in New Taipei City.

The Keelung District Prosecutor's Office rushed to apply to the court for custody of Yang and others on the grounds that Yang and others were involved in the punishment of smuggling regulations before the 3-month detention period expired and they were deported. Unexpectedly, the court rejected it on the grounds of lack of jurisdiction.

After the chief prosecutor Chen Zhaoshi and the prosecutor Zhang Yonghan protested the case, the Keelung Court reopened the detention court on December 14 last year, the day before Yang and the other five people were detained for three months, and ruled to detain the five people including Yang.

Yang and other five people still denied the crime of smuggling during their detention, and insisted that they entered Taiwan's territorial waters by mistake. However, the prosecution had specific criminal evidence that Yang and others smuggled 65 tons of frozen tripe livestock products, so Yang and others finally bowed their heads and confessed to smuggling .

Prosecutors determined that the smuggling of China's frozen tripe animal products by Yang and other five people is a controlled item in Item 1 of Article 2 of the Smuggling Regulations, and the smuggling of tripe and other livestock products from China is prohibited from importing and subject to quarantine.

Yang and the five others committed the crime of importing more than the announced amount of smuggled controlled items from China in Article 2, Item 1 of the Regulations on the Punishment of Smuggling, and the crime of illegally importing quarantined items in Article 41, Item 1 of the Regulations on the Prevention and Control of Animal Infectious Diseases.