Five teenage gas-thieves take police on wild chase

Taitung police chased the five suspects in vehicles for 20 kilometers then on foot in a waist-deep river and up a mountainside after the pack drove away from a local gas station without paying the NT$1,300 refueling tab.

After the car chase, the suspects abandoned their allegedly stolen car and took off running. One of the suspects, surnamed Lin, who weighed nearly 100 kilograms, gave up after 200 meters. “I regret being overweight,” he said in police custody after collapsing on a rock.

His cohorts continued their escape for another four kilometers before trekking a 50-meter wide, waist-deep river, then up a 300-meter high steep hill.

The second suspect captured, surnamed Li, slipped down the hillside and hung dangerously on a tree before giving up.

A third suspect, surnamed Chen, was the last to be caught after running into Taitung County's Sazasa indigenous village (鸞山部落).

The two remaining teens successfully climbed over the mountain and escaped. The police uncovered amphetamines and two metal pellets for altered handguns in the abandoned car.

They stole a car and drove from Hsinchu to Taitung, so one of the escapees who was under Taitung District Court's protective custody can report to the court yesterday morning, Li told the police. They went to refuel for their trip home and took off because they had no money.

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