About NT$10 million still unaccounted for: reports
Taiwan News
Date: 2016-07-20
By: By Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer
TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – A bag believed to contain the missing NT$23 million (US$718,000)
ATM theft suspect Andrejs Peregudovs.
from the automatic teller machine theft by an East European group was found along a path in Taipei City’s Neihu District Wednesday afternoon, but by evening it became clear that not all the money was inside, reports said.
A group of up to 19 people were believed to have been involved in the theft of a total of NT$83 million (US$2.59 million) from more than 40 First Commercial Bank ATMs during the July 10 weekend.
Most of the suspects fled the country, but the arrest of Latvian citizen Andrejs Peregudovs in Yilan County on July 17 supplied investigators with a major breakthrough. The same day, Romanian national Mihail Colibaba and Moldovan citizen Nikolay Penkov were picked up by police at a Taipei hotel, and NT$60 million (US$1.8 million) was found soon after. The group had used lockers at Taipei Railway Station as a hiding spot.
Peregudovs, who was transferred to the Taipei Detention Center with his two suspected accomplices, claimed he had put the missing money in a bag and deposited it somewhere near a parking lot in the Neihu District, apparently to be picked up by other members of the group, reports said. [FULL STORY]
