TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A drug trafficking syndicate sent ketamine disguised as bath salts and spa body scrub from Germany to Taiwan, with the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) arresting three suspects involved in two different incidents.
The CIB held a press conference on Tuesday (June 18) announcing details of the drug bust, noting that in February, it received notification from Taipei Customs of suspicious parcels from Germany. Upon inspection, bath salts, spa body scrubs, and other products contained the Class 3 drug ketamine.
The two packages had a total of 12 bags of bath salts and 10 cans of body scrub, containing a total of 8.61 kg of ketamine with a market value of approximately NT$12 million (US$370,000). The CIB set up a task force under the direction of the Taipei District Prosecutors Office, per CNA.
The task force discovered the recipient of the first drug package was a known 20-year-old Hong Kong gangster surnamed Liu (劉). He arrived in Taiwan at the end of last year to rent a house to establish a delivery address for the drugs.
After renting a place in Taipei’s Wenshan District, he went to Hong Kong for one month before returning to Taiwan to pick up the drug package when he was ambushed by police at the post office on Feb. 7. The gross weight of ketamine seized at the scene was 4.29 kg.
As for the second package, the task force learned the address was a residence in Taipei’s Nangang District. The recipient was a 47-year-old man surnamed Liu (劉) who was asked to rent an apartment or find an uninhabited residence for the delivery. He borrowed a cellphone from his 31-year-old friend, surnamed Yu (余), to arrange the delivery.
However, Liu soon became wary that a police ambush awaited him. For this reason, he never collected the package. In the end, the police believed they had enough information to arrest both Liu and Yu on Feb. 29.
The task force transferred all three suspects to the Taipei District Prosecutors Office. The two individuals surnamed Liu remain in detention, while the other male surnamed Yu was released on NT$100,000 bail. Police are continuing to track the source of the drugs and look for more information connecting the two drug smuggling cases.
