TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The suspect who sent a death threat to the Taipei Metro operator two days in a row has been identified, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) has announced.
At a press conference on Saturday (Jan. 28), Chiang condemned the act and said the police department had stepped up subway patrols after the first report of a death threat on Friday morning (Jan. 27). Police identified the suspect and how the death threats had been made, Chiang added, calling on citizens not to panic.
At 7:24, Friday morning, the metro operator received an email which claimed to have placed a bomb on the platform of an unknown station. The metro company reported the situation to the police and ramped up patrol security.
At 7:02, Saturday morning, the company received another email which claimed massive killings would be carried out on the subway system. An initial investigation showed the anonymous threatening emails were sent from overseas through a virtual private network (VPN), UDN reported.
Sources told UDN the suspect is a young Chinese citizen, male, who had been studying at a graduate school in Taiwan. The individual, who is not in Taiwan, reportedly has a long criminal record for making death threats against Taiwanese organizations.
The suspect is also on the Taipei District Prosecutors Office's wanted list for failing to attend court in a forgery case.