TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan detained 10 members of a tanker crew after they tried to smuggle a record 1.3 tons of marijuana with an estimated street value of NT$3.5 billion (US$114.24 million) into the country, reports said Friday (Dec. 29).
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) found the group transferring the drugs from a Mongolian-registered tanker to smaller boats near Kaohsiung City, per CNA. The suspected smugglers were three Taiwanese nationals, including the captain, and seven crew members from Myanmar.
Qiaotou District Prosecutors Office spent three months collecting information about reported plans by a drug-smuggling gang to land in Taiwan from the sea. Early on Dec. 10, they stopped a small Tainan-registered vessel at sea northwest of Kaohsiung and found four bags containing 221.7 kilograms of marijuana on board.
The following day, investigators found four abandoned ships transporting 20 bags of the drug. After returning to land, they counted 1,159.3 kg of marijuana.
The CGA later found the Mongolian tanker that had supplied the smaller ships.