Tunghai University in central Taiwan blackmailed with water poisoning

on May 02 in news

Tunghai University in Taichung City received blackmails Thursday and Friday with water poisoning threats. The Taichung City police had retrieved fingerprints on blackmailing letter to look for the suspect.

Tunghai University phoned the police upon discovering a blackmailing letter at the door of the President’s Office on Thursday. A phone call was made by an unidentified male on Friday morning to the school, threatening to put poison in campus water. The school immediately shut down the water source.

The blackmailer demanded NT$5 million in cash and 50 taels of gold (about 1850 grams) from the university in the letter with a threat to throw chlorine bomb, which is lethal when dissolved in water or in air. A design sketch of chlorine bomb is attached with the letter to prove the blackmailer’s bomb-making ability, said the police.

The police indicated that the blackmailer asked the school to transport the cash to Taichung Intercontinental Baseball Stadium by school bus and place the gold on the ceiling of the first-floor toilet of an office building in Central Taiwan Science Park. He also told Tunghai University in letter to inform other universities in Taichung City to each remit NT$80,000 into a designated account, or will face the same intimidation.

Tunghai shut down the water supply Friday morning and had all water towers examined by the Environmental Protection Department of the city government. Tseng Hua-yuan, chief secretary of the university, said they had emptied all standpipes for sample taking, and once no abnormality was recoded in examination, the water supply will resume step by step.

Tseng said the school will reinforce patrols by security guards and make a request to the police that plainclothesmen be stationed on campus.

Taiwan Water Corporation dispatched two water trucks in the afternoon to supply 10 tons of water to school cafeterias and dormitories. The University is slated to end water supply until next Monday.

by Taiwan News, Staff Writer

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