TAIPEI (Taiwan News) - Police arrested American 3D-printed gun advocate Cody Wilson in Taipei City’s Wanhua District Friday evening, just a day after it became known he was wanted in Texas for paying a 16-year-old girl for sex, the Apple Daily reported.
His arrest and expected transfer, first to the Criminal Investigation Bureau and later to the National Immigration Agency, brings to a quick close a case which had police hurrying to check out his movements since his arrival in Taiwan on September 6.
Wilson, 30, first checked in at the luxurious Mandarin Oriental Hotel on the capital‘s Dunhua North Road after a flight from the U.S. However, he left the following day by taxi for an unknown destination, reports said.
As it became known that Wilson was a wanted man in his native country, Taiwan police launched a search for his whereabouts. A real estate agent who saw the reports about the American on TV alerted the police to his recent visit to sign a six-month rental agreement for a studio, reports said.
Wilson had paid the first month’s rent of NT$19,000 (US$620) and a deposit of NT$18,000 on Thursday afternoon, but he failed to turn up at the agreed time around Friday noon to take possession of the keys for the apartment, possibly aware that he had become a wanted man in Taiwan as well.
He was arrested around 6 p.m. at a hotel on Wanhua’s Guangzhou Street, the Central News Agency reported.
As the American Institute in Taiwan reportedly moved to cancel his passport, Wilson will no longer have a legal travel document, making his deportation to the U.S. possible, reports said.