TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — An undocumented Vietnamese migrant worker with five other undocumented migrants in his car is suspected of being involved in a hit-and-run that occurred on Thursday (June 2).

Taichung Police Department’s Wuri Precinct said on Sunday (June 5) that a 24-year-old Vietnamese male migrant worker surnamed Ruan (阮) had recently borrowed identity documents from a Vietnamese woman in Taiwan to buy a car, CNA reported. While he was driving on Zhonghua Road in Taichung’s Longjing District on Thursday, his car collided with the scooter of a 27-year-old woman surnamed Chen (陳).

Ruan parked his car on the roadside about 50 meters from the scene and he and the five passengers fled, leaving behind the car and a critically injured Chen.



Chen’s father said his daughter had been together with her boyfriend for more than 10 years, and that they were scheduled to get married on June 23. Noting that his daughter is being treated in an intensive care unit at a hospital, the father said she now faces a long road to recovery.

According to police, they were able to track down Ruan and the five passengers, and all of them were found to be undocumented, per CNA. No alcohol was detected in either the driver or vehicle, police said.

According to the police, they turned over Ruan to prosecutors for allegedly committing offenses against public safety. The undocumented passengers were sent to the National Immigration Agency.

According to Taiwan’s Criminal Code, “A person who flees after the motor vehicle he drives has caused an accident resulting in the injury of another shall be sentenced to imprisonment for not less than six months but not more than five years; a person who flees after the motor vehicle he drives has caused an accident resulting in death or aggravated injury of another shall be sentenced to imprisonment for more than one year but less than seven years.”

However, the punishment may be reduced or remitted if the driver is not at fault for causing a death or injury in a traffic accident.