Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling
From glen to glen, and down the mountain side
The summer’s gone, and all the flowers are dying.
Spare a thought for Danny Pang (彭日成), our own “made in Taiwan” Bernie Madoff.
Just when you thought us Taiwanese couldn’t compete with the waiguoren in the dicey financial propositions department, along comes Mr Pang’s tale.
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) broke the story this week, and it’s packed to the gills with alleged shenanigans at Mr Pang’s California-based, US$4 billion private equity fund — and related extracurricular activities.
It’s a juicy tale — and it’s got it all.
Entertaining prostitutes at the presidential suite of the Grand Formosa Regent? Check. Running a Ponzi scheme to cover investment losses? Roger that. A joint mining venture in Xinjiang with a Chinese “princeling”? Uh huh. Trips to Vegas in the company Gulfstream to gamble with “borrowed” firm money? Yep. An ex-stripper ex-wife shot to death in cold blood by an “elegantly dressed” assailant? Oh, yeah.
To cover my own legal behind, I hasten to add that Mr Pang has, through a spokesman, denied many of the allegations, describing most as “fabrications.”
But you know things are bad when you’ve hired Mike Sitrick, one of California’s top PR spinmasters, for damage control duty.
Sitrick’s already taken steps one and two from the Crisis Management 101 playbook: an independent “special committee” has been named to probe the allegations, and “pending the outcome” of that investigation, Mr Pang has stepped aside as chairman and chief executive. (Sitrick to Pang: “And don’t show your face in Vegas, got it?”)
So where’s Mr Pang now? According to his spokesman, in China — attending an “annual religious festival.”
Of course, it’s important to note that many of the allegations come from a source who is himself highly dubious: a former Pang buddy and business partner who himself admits to taking kickbacks (he says he returned them) and having an affair with a company employee.
He also admitted he was using the threat of talking to the WSJ as leverage in arbitration talks with Pang’s firm.
Still, the newspaper did its homework and found several other sources suggesting Mr Pang has made a career of being “economical with the truth.” My favorite detail: The WSJ reports he was a student leader at the University of California, Irvine, despite records showing he was only enrolled for one summer.
Asked about that apparent contradiction, a university spokeswoman said: “He could just walk on campus, be Mr Personality and get elected chairman. How would they know if he was a student?”
The Taiwan link? In addition to producing Mr Pang, the man’s fund apparently raises most of its money from Taiwanese banks.
Which means if you’ve deposited any money in Hua Nan, Standard Chartered or Taichung Commercial Bank in recent years, you may have unwittingly funded one of Mr Pang’s alleged lamei nights at the Grand Formosa or a company junket to Vegas.
The WSJ even has a picture from one of those trips, showing a female employee holding up cash onboard a Gulfstream jet on its way back from Vegas after Pang allegedly “threw money” at several female company employees as his way of celebrating gambling winnings.
Why did I go into journalism, again?
Speaking of tossing money around, they finally caught Taiwan’s mysterious money-thrower this week.
Unfortunately, it happened before I could locate his whereabouts and collect my own highway gaofei.
According to local media, one Mr Chen threw an estimated NT$2 million (US$60,000) out the back seat window of cabs on highways throughout Taiwan.
The reason? He said he was being haunted by five ghosts and throwing money out of car windows made him feel better.
The police say that he’s schizophrenic.
Persecution by five ghosts, schizophrenia — what’s the difference?
No one can tell, despite all the pseudo-scientific gobbledeegook that psychiatrists are fond of spouting about the latter. Five ghosts — now there’s something a man can grasp.
Mr Chen made the money by selling an apartment here in Taipei City’s Neihu District (內湖), thereby setting the gold standard for “what not to do with your real estate profits.”
The Central News Agency reported that police are demanding the highway-strewn money be returned.
“Police rejected the finders keepers belief and said anyone they find who has picked up the cash will be ordered to return it. So far no one has come forward with any of the money.”
Are they kidding?
Unfortunately, since Chen’s taxis failed to take a route near Johnny Neihu’s homestead — and since I still haven’t cracked the receipt lottery — I’m forced to continue as an ink-stained, working schmo, tied to my desk pounding out sarcastic bon mots.
If I really wanted to make money, I would’ve gotten a job at the Tucheng Detention Center, where they’re now holding ex-prez A-bian (陳水扁) on corruption charges.
In a twist of irony too obvious to belabor, comes the news this week that Tucheng is itself Corruption Central.
The place is allegedly rotten to the core, with officials collecting handsome kickbacks by smuggling in porn mags, cigarettes and other must-haves for desperate inmates.
The reports hastened to add that A-bian is not suspected of paying for any of these goodies.
After all, who’s got time for porn when you’re busy scribbling your tell-all prison diaries? Which, by the way, are starting to get really embarrassing.
This rag’s rival, the infinitely downsizeable Taiwan News, had more shocking details on the smut-smuggling jailers.
“Guards were also willing to pass on information from inmates officially locked up incommunicado, reports said. Cigarettes are not banned from Taiwan’s prisons, but the amount prisoners can receive is limited. Alcohol and fruit that can be used for brewing alcoholic drinks, such as plums, are barred.”
Apparently they’re worried that inmates with a bit more free time on their hands then A-bian are going to set up their own in-cell plum wine distilleries. Who woulda thunk it?
The corruption-fest doesn’t end there. There’s a high-profile bribery scandal in the Ministry of National Defense. And now there are allegations that top cross-strait negotiator Chiang Pin-kung’s (江丙坤) son still has cozy business ties in Chicomland.
All of which makes me think it’s time to tweak our tourism motto to “Taiwan can touch your heart — for NT$10,000.”
If you want to touch anywhere else, it’ll be twice that.
And if you want the whole deal, you’d better start up your own private equity fund.
Got something to tell Johnny? Go on, get it off your chest. Write to johnnyneihu@gmail.com, but be sure to put “Dear Johnny” in the subject line or he’ll mark your bouquets and brickbats as spam.
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