Authorities said they have made persistent efforts to crack down on election-related criminal activity in recent weeks, and have handled more than 1,000 cases of suspected vote-buying, campaign violence, underground gambling on poll results and other election-related violations across the nation.
The Supreme Prosecutors’ Office yesterday said there have been reports of candidates resorting to illegal tactics by distributing smear campaign literature, along with vote-buying schemes in the run-up to Saturday’s presidential and legislative elections.
Prosecutor-General Yen Ta-ho (顏大和) said prosecutors and police are working to crack down on vote-buying and other violations, and that law enforcement agencies will promptly handle incidents of crowd violence.
Photo: Hung Mei-hsiu, Taipei Times
Supreme Prosecutors’ Office statistics indicated a total of 1,044 election violation cases, with charges against 1,797 suspects, as of Tuesday.
Among these, buying votes with cash or gifts by candidates accounted for 551 cases and 1,057 people charged, while election-related violence accounted for 69 cases and 83 suspects charged.
In their crackdown, authorities in Pingtung County raided 33 gambling operations yesterday and apprehended 27 people suspected of operating underground betting pools for wagering on election outcomes.
Photo: Liu Ching-hou, Taipei Times
Police in New Taipei City also reported a successful raid to bust the ringleaders and members of an illegal gambling operation using mobile phone apps for clients to place bets.
The New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said the operation had taken NT$200 million (US$5.95 million) in wagers since its launch last year, and the raid on Tuesday rounded up seven suspects, and seized NT$10 million in the bank accounts of the ringleaders.
In another development yesterday, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Hsinchu City legislative candidate Cheng Cheng-chien (鄭正鈐) led supporters in a protest outside a local police station in a dispute involving smear campaign literature.
Cheng said he led the protest because of police action the previous day to confiscate bundles of campaign literature, totaling 120,000 pamphlets, which were printed and financed by supporting groups.
However, Hsinchu Prosecutor Lin Li-chia (林李嘉) said his office had received complaints, and would investigate the case, as the pamphlets were deemed to contain distortions and sensational allegations against Cheng’s rival, Democratic Progressive Party candidate Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘).
The pamphlet had a photograph of Ker, with the main headline branding him as the “Underground Emperor of Hsinchu,” along with other descriptive epithets of Ker as the “Shadow Warrior-Gangster” (黑道影武者), “Manipulator of Justice System” (司法操弄者), “Despot of Hsinchu” (新竹鴨霸者) and the “legislature’s Shady Dealmaker” (國會喬事者).
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat
RSS