Coast Guard apologizes for failures in illegal Chinese dinghy entry case

Taipei, Aug. 11 (CNA) The chief of the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) was forced to apologize Tuesday for failures in the agency's handling of the illegal entry of two Chinese nationals after their rubber dinghy was found near Taipei Port by a member of the public.

In a press statement released Tuesday, CGA Director-General Chang Chung-lung (張忠龍) apologized for the lapses, which included a radar operator's failure to follow standard operating procedures and officers on patrol not thoroughly investigating the coastline.

He said the agency would not shield those responsible and would hold them strictly accountable.

The CGA said Tuesday it was notified on July 24 that an inflatable boat had been found near the northern breakwater of Taipei Port in New Taipei's Bali District.

The two Chinese suspects were identified after Coast Guard officers reviewed footage from coastal monitoring systems, and they were arrested on July 30 in Taoyuan and ordered by a court to be detained without visitation rights on Aug. 3, local media have reported.

The Shilin District Prosecutors Office is now investigating the case, the CGA said.

On Monday, however, a post on Threads by an unidentified person accused Coast Guard personnel of doing a poor job patrolling the coastline and following up on a tip provided by a fisherman, including by allegedly trying to keep information out of the public eye.

In response, the CGA said Tuesday that an investigation found that patrol personnel had inspected the shoreline after receiving the tip but failed to thoroughly check some areas, resulting in the suspects going undetected.

The CGA also found that a radar operator detected a signal but mistakenly identified it as ocean wave interference and did not report it, which the agency deemed a serious human error, according to Huang Cheng-wei (黃承偉), commander of the CGA's 8th Northern Branch Coast Patrol Corps, in a separate press release.

The case came to light publicly through the Threads post that a fisherman found the boat on a beach in Bali District.

The boat contained Chinese-made fuel containers, toilet paper bearing simplified Chinese characters and three life jackets, the post said.

"The rubber boat lay on the beach for two days. If the fisherman had not reported it, the Coast Guard would have had no idea it was there," it said.

"The suspected smugglers abandoned the boat and disappeared, with no Coast Guard patrol personnel, inspection vehicles or radar systems detecting or alerting authorities to their presence during that time," it said.

The post also alleged that after the fisherman reported the boat and provided key information, Coast Guard personnel repeatedly called and messaged the person, asking the person not to release photos from the scene for confidentiality reasons and to protect the ongoing investigation.

Though the CGA apologized for the fiasco, it also blamed a lack of resources and inadequate technology for the problem.

It said that because advanced surveillance equipment has yet to be fully deployed and AI systems for detecting small targets have not been introduced, it has required personnel to maximize their effectiveness and optimize radar sensitivity.

But they have not been able to achieve the goal of zero undetected cases.

The CGA said 29 suspected illegal entry cases involving 71 people have been reported since last year, with authorities intercepting 22 cases involving 61 people.

The CGA said it would continue to strengthen shoreline patrols and maritime surveillance, while expediting the procurement of AI systems, drones and other surveillance equipment to safeguard national security and maritime security.