TAIPEI: The Bureau of Investigation said that it has rounded up an underground remittance group, intercepting four suspects at airports who were allegedly about to smuggle more than NT$30 million (US$946,969) out of the country.
The investigators said the suspects were intercepted at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport and Taichung Airport, with a combined NT$33.7 million in cash seized from them.
The investigators also raided seven locations, including an underground accounting firm and several shops that sell primarily to Indonesian workers in Taiwan.
A man named Chang, the alleged mastermind of the group, is an Indonesian Chinese, the investigators said.
After obtaining a Republic of China identification card in 2013, Chang opened Indonesian shops and persuaded a dozen others in central and northern Taiwan to be affiliates and collect cash from Indonesian workers seeking to remit the money home, they said.
The cash was hidden in cups, gloves, shoes and pencil cases and sneaked out of the country in checked-in luggage, they said.
The initial investigation showed that Chang has smuggled more than NT$7 billion out of Taiwan since 2013, investigators said.
