Legislative Yuan Secretary-General Lin Hsi-shan (林錫山) yesterday was detained for suspected corruption amid a probe into alleged irregularities in government procurements.
The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said Lin is suspected of having received more than NT$10 million (US$295,631) in kickbacks from Far Net Technologies Co (網遠科技), which won 32 computer and IT-related contracts at the Legislative Yuan amounting to NT$200 million.
Three other individuals were also detained as of last night, including Far Net Technologies owner Lin Pao-cheng (李保承) and sales manager Lin Ming-yu (林明玉), and Chen Liang-yin (陳亮吟), a section chief at the legislature’s Secretary-General’s Office.
Photo: Lo Pei-der, Taipei Times
The four are being questioned over alleged violations of the Anti-Corruption Act (貪污治罪條例) and the Government Procurement Act (政府採購法), as well as accepting bribes, receiving improper benefit in contravention of their official duty and leaking secrets, Deputy Chief Prosecutor Chang Chieh-chin (張介欽) said.
He said that all four are being held incommunicado due to the risk that they might collude on testimony, destroy evidence or flee from prosecution.
Chang said that more than 160 people, including police officers, prosecutors and investigators, were involved in the raids on 19 locations on Tuesday and that more than NT$6 million was found at Lin Hai-shan’s office and his residence, which prosecutors suspect came from kickbacks from Far Net.
Nine others taken in for questioning on Tuesday were released yesterday after posting bail, including Lin Hsi-shan’s wife, Liu Hsin-wei (劉馨蔚), who was freed on NT$2 million bail; Lin’s secretary Tsai Pin-chuan (蔡斌全), freed on NT$100,000 bail; and Chen Lu-sheng (陳露生), a former section chief at the Legislative Yuan’s Information Technology Office, released on NT$500,000 bail.
Prosecutors said Lin Hsi-shan, Far Net and other officials were placed under surveillance in December 2013 as part of an investigation into allegations of graft and bid-rigging dating back to 2012.
Chang said Lin Hsi-shan allegedly ordered the heads of the Information Technology Office and its staff to cooperate with Far Net on a number of open public tenders for computer and IT-related procurement projects, where the technical specifications, equipment requirements, minimum bid price, details of tender contract, allocated budget and bids by competing companies were leaked to the firm.
Prosecutors said that while under surveillance, Lin Hsi-shan allegedly received NT$7 million in a brown envelope from an intermediary sent by Far Net as the pair took a Taiwan High Speed Rail train journey in January last year.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
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