TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – The Taoyuan District Prosecutors Office on Saturday charged a Chinese man who arrived in Taiwan with his son in a small inflatable boat with immigration violations.

The defendant, Song Yuankun (宋元坤), 41, a laborer from the Chinese province of Yunnan, took his 17-year-old son on the trip May 15. They left Fujian Province at 6 a.m. and arrived on a beach near a gas plant in Taoyuan’s Guanyin District at 5:30 p.m. the same day, per CNA.

It was only the morning after their 126-kilometer journey that the event came to light because they entered a local police precinct to ask for assistance, prosecutors said. They had used a card to withdraw cash from an ATM on their first evening to afford dinner, but when the money ran out, they decided to visit the police.

Song had the impression that Taiwan was wealthy and therefore wanted his son to study there. The results of separate lie detector tests showed that they had not been sent to obtain military secrets, according to prosecutors.

The investigation was completed Saturday, with a charge of breaking the Immigration Act leveled at Song, and his son was referred to a juvenile court because he is a minor.

In a similar previous case, a retired Chinese navy officer who arrived at the mouth of the Tamsui River in a speedboat was sentenced to eight months in prison.