TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A suspect in the train graffiti incident last month was detained at Taoyuan International Airport as he returned to Taiwan on Wednesday (Sept. 6).
In late August, separate graffiti attacks on Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) and local Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) trains occurred in Taipei, Taichung, and Kaohsiung. No link between the incidents was immediately made, but investigators later discovered some of the suspects were Europeans who had left the country.
A suspect surnamed Chiang (江) arrived at Taoyuan International Airport from overseas on Wednesday morning, per UDN. He was detained by police but later released on bail of NT$10,000 (US$313) while barred from leaving Taiwan again.
In their investigation, police watched 200 surveillance camera recordings. They found that the suspect had changed clothes four times and used more than one taxi to reach and leave the site of the incident in Shulin, New Taipei City.
The target of the 22-year-old, who had a record of previous vandalization, had been a new EMU3000 train operated by the TRA. The incident occurred around 4 a.m. on Aug. 13 and was the first-ever graffiti attack on a TRA train, according to UDN.
After police found the suspect had left the country, they searched for information about his return to Taiwan. Officers were waiting for Chiang at the airport on Wednesday morning to detain him.
He denied the allegations, saying the graffiti incident was the work of a website cooperating with a foreign citizen, though he acknowledged he had been watching them work, according to UDN.