Taipei police near breakthrough in food poisoning mystery

TAIPEI (TVBS News) — The Taipei City Police Department is confident of a breakthrough soon in the Polam Kopitiam food poisoning case, Commissioner Chang Jung-hsin said Thursday (April 18), emphasizing that no one had been poisoned.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) announced on Sunday that all samples taken in the case tested negative. Deputy Minister Wang Pi-sheng stressed that the case will "definitely not become a cold case."

Wang said he was unaware of the results of the police investigation, leaving it to the prosecutors to explain. All possible samples have been taken in the Polam Kopitiam case, and attempts were made to cultivate the Burkholderia gladioli bacteria, but no traces of the bacteria were found.

The ministry's responsibility is to test and cultivate evidence for the prosecutors, Wang stressed.

He added that the final result was that only the hands of a Vietnamese chef in Taipei tested positive for Bongkrek acid, indicating that the cause of the Polam Kopitiam incident was the toxin.

From the current progress, there are no results from the specimens, and the follow-up investigation is left to the prosecutors to explain.