Taipei: Nearly half a tonne of heroin from Southeast Asia was seized in Taiwan moments after a drug smuggling gang using diving equipment brought the shipment to shore, officials announced on Wednesday.
Pingtung District Prosecutors Office, in Taiwan’s south, said law enforcement officials captured 470 kilogrammes of the drug, wrapped into 1,240 bricks, as it was brought to shore in the early hours of Wednesday last week.
It is the island’s second-largest recorded heroin seizure with a street value of TW$6 billion ($195 million). Prosecutors said the shipment was brought over from Southeast Asia on fishing vessels, transferred to smaller dinghies and then brought in by smugglers with wetsuits and flippers.
The statement did not say which country the heroin came from but Myanmar is by far Southeast Asia’s largest manufacturer of the drug. Ten people, including two minors, were arrested in the operation.
Taiwan’s largest heroin seizure was recorded in May 2017. (AFP)
