TAIPEI: Taoyuan police has recently apprehended two Malaysians and a Taiwanese suspects in connection with a cross-border heroine-smuggling ring, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) has announced.
The arrests were made during separate raids in Taoyuan county. The two Malaysian suspects both surnamed Tan and a Taiwanese surnamed Liang were apprehended during the raids, the CIB said in a released statement.
A total of 122 grams of heroin were later found inside the bodies of the two Malaysian suspects, who were apparently serving as body packers for the ring, it noted.
According to the CIB, Liang was allegedly a member of a cross-border heroine tracking ring that has been using foreign nationals in poverty to serve as drug-traffickers to smuggle illicit drugs from Cambodia to Taiwan in this fashion.
Body packing is a term used to refer to the smuggling of illicit drugs using the human body as a vehicle.
Individual packets of drugs are wrapped in waterproof material and swallowed. Once they have reached their destination, these balloons are retrieved from the carrier’s body.
The CIB warns of the danger of body packing due to drug toxicity resulting from a leaking or ruptured packet, causing human carriers great peril.
The case is now being investigated by the Taoyuan District Prosecutors Office.
