TAIPEI: Investigators and police in Kaohsiung have busted a drug smuggling operation that used shipping containers, discovering 138 kilograms of amphetamine hidden among frozen tuna that was about to be exported to Japan from Kaohsiung Port, the Investigation Bureau under the Ministry of Justice (MJIB) said Wednesday.
The seizure is the largest of its kind in terms of volume that the MJIB has ever seized in a shipping container going from Taiwan to Japan, the bureau said in a statement.
Acting on a tipoff that a Pingtung County-based refrigeration company could be using frozen tuna to smuggle drugs to Japan, MJIB investigators stationed in southern Taiwan and Kaohsiung Port police raided a freighter docked at the port’s Pier 63 along with customs officials and district prosecutors Tuesday.
They opened two cargo containers loaded with frozen tuna that were set to be shipped to Shimizu and discovered the amphetamine in the bellies of 53 tuna, each of which had a blue ribbon tied around it, the statement said, adding that the company owner and two employees were then arrested.
If the drugs had made it to Japan, they would have fetched over 1.4 billion Japanese yuan (US$11.3 million), the bureau said.
