held the wrong persons in hostage in central Taiwan yesterday. When walking on the streets in Fengyuan City in central Taichung County in the morning, an alert pedestrian saw two schoolchildren on their way to school were forced into a van by a man at a little past 7 a.m.
The vehicle immediately sped away.
But the concerned pedestrian took down the license
plate number and called the police.
Initial probe showed the car was a stolen vehicle already reported by the original owner.
The two children were sister, aged 11, and her younger brother.
Their mother received a phone call at 9:07 a.m. from an unidentified man who demanded a payment of "NT$3 million in gambling debt" for her husband before the release of her children.
She also reported the case to Fengyuan police that sought the assistance of the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) under the National Police Agency (NPA).
When the CIB agents coordinated the investigation, Fengyuan police got another phone call at 12:40 p.m. from a caring citizen who reported that two school children were seeking help on a street in Yuanlin Township in neighboring Changhua County to the south of Taichung.
After rushing to Yuanlin, they confirmed the two children were taken into a vehicle when they were on their way to school in Fengyuan in the morning.
While still recovering from the scare, the mother got another phone call at 1:15 p.m. from a man who made an apology for taking the wrong children.
The woman said that her husband has steady work at a plastic injection plant. He does not gamble and has no financial dispute with anyone either, she added.
CIB agents and local police in Fenghyuan and Changhua said they will continue working on the case to take in the perpetrators involved in the abduction with mistaken targets.
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