Taipei’s Nangang Police Precinct has recently caught a group that was allegedly involved in human trafficking, the precinct said on Friday.

At a press conference, the precinct’s head of criminal investigation section Chen Jen-chia (???) revealed that police were able to apprehend a group of six individuals after a 24-year-old male victim reported to authorities on an unspecified date that he had been beaten, threatened, and forced to have compromising photos of himself taken.

The unnamed victim had initially agreed to a job offer from a 22 year old surnamed Liu (?).

The victim said Liu claimed that he would be able to help him secure a job in Thailand that paid between NT$100,000 (US$3,310.79) to NT$200,000 per month, alongside perks such as compensated airfare and lodging, according to police.

While the victim had initially agreed to the offer, he said he then contacted Liu to turn the offer down after seeing local news reports and official alerts about a spate of recent incidents in which numerous Taiwanese had been lured to Cambodia with promises of high-paying jobs, only to be forced into illegal work and held against their will.

According to police, Liu then lured the victim to a meeting in a rural area in New Taipei’s Xizhi District where Liu and five co-conspirators beat the victim with baseball bats and took compromising photos of him before forcing him to sign a note promising to pay NT$2 million.

Liu allegedly told the victim that he would have to go and work abroad if he was unable to pay the NT$2 million sum, police said.

The victim then went to the police and filed a report against Liu, leading authorities to raid the perpetrators’ residences and arrest all six individuals.

Police said they would continue to investigate the case to see if there were more parties involved.

Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel