INVESTIGATION:
Legal authorities in Brussels have transferred evidence to Taiwan as part of a drug trafficking case involving 3.29kg of ketamine
Taiwanese law enforcement authorities worked with their Belgian counterparts for the first time last month to collect evidence as part of an investigation into a drug trafficking case, the Criminal Investigation Bureau said.
The case involved a package containing 3.29kg of ketamine to be sent to Taiwan, which was discovered by Belgian customs authorities in late 2022, the bureau said in a statement on Friday.
The Belgian authorities told the bureau’s liaison officer stationed in the Netherlands about the package on Dec. 29, 2022, leading to the formation of a task force in Taiwan and the arrest of three suspects between Jan. 10 and Jan. 13 last year, the bureau said.
Photo copied by Chiu Chun-fu, Taipei Times
The three suspects were indicted by the Taoyuan District Prosecutors’ Office on April 7 last year for violating the Narcotics Hazard Prevention Act (毒品危害防制條例) and the Smuggling Penalty Act (懲治走私條例), it said.
The Taoyuan District Court requested legal assistance in the case from Belgium through the Ministry of Justice. On Nov. 14, it received a sample in Brussels of the Category 3 illicit drugs that had been seized by Belgian authorities.
The ketamine sample was taken back to Taiwan on Nov. 16 for testing as evidence in the case, making it the first time the two countries had worked together on evidence collection, the bureau said.
According to publicly available court documents, the three suspects were detained during the investigation until May 18 last year, when the district court granted them release on bail, citing their confession to their alleged offenses.
No verdict in the case had been announced or found in the government’s database of court cases as of Friday.
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