Vice Minister of the Interior Yen Wan-chin (
The former director of the Yangmingshan National Park Service Center, Tsai By-lu (
"Yen behaved suspiciously during the investigation. He might destroy or falsify evidence, or confer with the other defendants if he was able to communicate with them, so the Taipei District Court approved the prosecutors' application to take Yen into custody," Taipei District Court spokesman Liu Shou-sung (劉壽嵩) said yesterday.
PHOTO: CHANG CHIA-MING, TAIPEI TIMES
Yen is the highest level political appointee in the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government to be investigated for corruption.
Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) accepted his resignation yesterday.
Yen had previously served as deputy DPP secretary-general and the director of the party's Chinese affairs department.
DPP Chairman Yu Shyi-kun said yesterday that the party would soon launch its own investigation into Yen's activities. If it is proven that Yen was involved in bribery, the party will expel him, Yu said.
Yen is a member of the New Tide faction and leader William Lai (
The investigation into Yen centers around the plan to construct a cable car system connecting Beitou with Yangmingshan National Park.
Last December the Rich Development Corp, a construction firm, won a build-operate-transfer bid to construct the cable car system. It proposed building four cable car stations, and the Yangmingshan National Park Service Center granted the firm permits for construction in March. The company began construction work in May.
Soon after the permits had been awarded, however, Taipei prosecutors received complaints alleging that the permits had been awarded illegally and alleging bribery.
Prosecutors said their investigation led them to suspect that Yen knew that the company failed to qualify for the construction permit and needed to improve its proposal and that he asked Tsai to grant the permits anyway.
Prosecutors said they had monitored Rich Development's telephone calls and heard people talk about bribery.
Prosecutors said they had also found it suspicious that Tsai approved permits for a total of 183 hot spring hotels and restaurants to be built around the cable car stations just a few days before he retired from his park job last month.
The permits were granted without environmental impact assessments being conducted, which was illegal, prosecutors said.
On Wednesday prosecutors led a search of 26 locations for evidence, including Yen's office and the Yangmingshan National Park Service Center.
Meanwhile, the Taipei City Government yesterday denied any involvement in the corruption scandal and said that it had followed all regulations in planning and executing the project.
Lee Shu-chuan (李四川), director of the Bureau of Public Works' new construction department, said the original cable car project, which was approved by the Executive Yuan in 1995, included the construction of a cable car system from Qinshui Park (親水公園) in Xinbeitou to Yangmingshan National Park, cable car stations and stores, but did not include the construction of hot spring hotels.
He said the interior ministry had added a training dormitory and hot springs hotel to the project when it issued a bulletin announcing approval of the project, thereby allowing contractors to develop those two kinds of buildings in the area.
"It's the ministry's responsibility to ask the Environmental Protection Administration about the construction of those buildings since it added the two items," Lee said.
While the city government is the supervising agency for the entire project, it actually has little authority because 90 percent of the construction sites are within the national park area, Lee said, putting them under the authority of the Yangmingshan National Park Administration.
Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) stood by his officials yesterday, saying that the scandal had nothing to do with the city government.
The cable-car project was scheduled to be completed next June, but city officials said the corruption probe might delay that timetable.
Additional reporting by Jewel Huang and Jean Lin
ACTION PLAN: Taiwan would expand procurement from the US and encourage more companies to invest in the US to deepen bilateral cooperation, Lai said The government would not impose reciprocal tariffs in retaliation against US levies, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday, as he announced five strategies to address the issue, including pledging to increase Taiwanese companies’ investments in the US. Lai has in the past few days met with administrative and national security officials, as well as representatives from various industries, to explore countermeasures after US President Donald Trump on Wednesday last week announced a 32 percent duty on Taiwanese imports. In a video released yesterday evening, Lai said that Taiwan would not retaliate against the US with higher tariffs and Taiwanese companies’ commitments to
Intelligence agents have recorded 510,000 instances of “controversial information” being spread online by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) so far this year, the National Security Bureau (NSB) said in a report yesterday, as it warned of artificial intelligence (AI) being employed to generate destabilizing misinformation. The bureau submitted a written report to the Legislative Yuan in preparation for National Security Bureau Director-General Tsai Ming-yen’s (蔡明彥) appearance before the Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee today. The CCP has been using cognitive warfare to divide Taiwanese society by commenting on controversial issues such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) investments in the
‘SPECIAL CHANNEL’: Taipei’s most important tasks are to stabilize industries affected by Trump’s trade tariffs and keep negotiations with Washington open, a source said National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) arrived in the US for talks with US President Donald Trump’s administration, a source familiar with the matter said on Friday. Wu was leading a delegation for a meeting known as the “special channel,” the Financial Times reported earlier. It marked Trump’s first use of the channel since returning to the White House on Jan. 20. Citing a source familiar with the matter, the Financial Times reported that Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) was also a part of the delegation. The visit came days after China concluded war games around Taiwan and amid Trump’s
HELPING HAND: The steering committee of the National Stabilization Fund is expected to hold a meeting to discuss how and when to utilize the fund to help buffer the sell-off The TAIEX plunged 2,065.87 points, or 9.7 percent, to close at 19,232.35 yesterday, the highest single-day percentage loss on record, as investors braced for US President Donald Trump’s tariffs after an extended holiday weekend. Amid the pessimistic atmosphere, 945 listed companies led by large-cap stocks — including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and Largan Precision Co (大立光) — fell by the daily maximum of 10 percent at the close, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. The number of listed companies ending limit-down set a new record, the exchange said. The TAIEX plunged by daily maxiumu in just
RSS