TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A former Chinese student could be behind the bomb threats sent to the Presidential Office from the email account of an anti-government agriculture expert, reports said Wednesday (Sept. 27).
The Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said the language in the messages, the email addresses, and the link with a person in the news was similar to the methods used by Zhang Haichuan (張海川), a former Chinese student in Taiwan, per Radio Taiwan International (RTI). Zhang has been blamed for a spate of bomb threats against railway stations, museums, zoos, and other popular destinations.
The email account used in the latest threats belonged to Lin Yu-hung (林裕紘), a critic of the government’s recent egg import policies. He recently shut down his “Lin Bay 好油” social media account due to threats made against him.
In the latest cases exposed by the CIB on Wednesday, a person had filled out comment forms on websites of targets including the Presidential Office and the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors Office. In each case, the suspect left the name of another person.
The message had been sent from overseas, so investigators would ask for international assistance, according to the CIB. The targets mentioned in the latest threats had been searched for explosives, but none were found, leading officials to label them as hoaxes.