TAIPEI, April 30  - Police in Taiwan cracked 54,873 illegal drug cases and arrested 58,707 suspects in 2016, authority statistics showed Sunday.

The number of drug cases last year increased by 10.68 percent year on year, but the 4,616 kilos of narcotics seized during the same period were 39.5 percent lower than in 2015, the data showed.

Over 83 percent of all the 58,707 suspects arrested aged 24 years old or above, while 13.2 percent were between 18 and 23 years old.

The number of young drug offenders has been on the rise in recent years in Taiwan.

To protect young people from drugs, the government in Taiwan said it had initiated a special program to help young offenders stay away from narcotics and would continue to fight against drug trafficking.