Taoyuan: Two men were arrested Sunday for illegal logging in Taoyuan’s Fuxing District in northern Taiwan, just days after police mistakenly drew their guns on a family in the area, a National Police Agency official said Tuesday.

According to Focus Taiwan, Hsu Hsiang-wei, a deputy head of the agency’s Seventh Special Police Corps, stated that the men had been transferred to the Taoyuan District Prosecutors Office on suspicion of violating the Forestry Act and the Narcotics Hazard Prevention Act.

The special police corps, acting on intelligence from the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency’s Hsinchu Branch, tracked a suspicious SUV on a roadside in Fuxing District on Sunday. After a check, police spotted valuable timber inside the car and immediately searched the surrounding area, where they found two suspects, surnamed Cheng and Chang, hiding in a nearby creek bed, and arrested them.

At the site, police seized 23 pieces of Taiwan incense cedar weighing 94 kilograms, as well as Taiwan jewel orchids, a protected forest by-product. They also confiscated the vehicle, an electric chainsaw, a hand saw, a hatchet, and drug inhalers.

The arrests followed an incident a few days earlier when police from the Daxi Precinct mistook a family of five in a sedan for illegal loggers, stopping their car and pulling out guns. The incident drew criticism after a family member described the ordeal in a social media post. Police have since apologized to the family and stated they would review operational procedures.