KMT Legislator Gary Wang (
Eleven defendants were also called at the committal proceedings yesterday to state whether they had been involved in the multi-million land deals -- one made in 1998 and the other in 1999.
Informed of the charges against him -- breach of trust, forgery and tampering with accounting records -- Wang, chairman of Eastern Multimedia and also chairman of the General Chamber of Commerce of the ROC (
The heir to the Rebar Group denied that he had inflated the price of a plot of land in Yangmei township, Taoyuan County, and obtained millions of dollars in under-the-table profits through the resale of the land, measured approximately 75,000m2.
Tsai, also appearing in yesterday's pre-trial procedure, denied the allegations that he had helped facilitate the land transactions between Wang's company and the state-run Taiwan Development and Trust Corp (TDTC,
Tsai, who plans to run in the December legislative elections, also urged the presiding judge Chu Meng-ping (
Chu did not respond to Tsai's request.
Prosecutors from the Taipei District Prosecutors' Office said that the case involved two stages: the sale and then the purchase of land in Yangmei. During each stage, under-the-table deals between the two sides inflated the price of the land to create illegal profits.
According to prosecutors, the listed Far Eastern Silo and Shipping (FESS,
The prosecution said that around NT$189 million of the price difference found its way through several dummy accounts into the accounts of another company owned by Wang. Chu's company also made NT$55 million from the artificially raised price.
The prosecution said this was a conspiracy in which Wang, Chu and two others squeezed money out of FESS and its shareholders. FESS intended to build a villa complex on the land, but due to the continuing decline in real estate prices, Wang then sought, after partially developing it, to sell it off for NT$1.8 billion to the state-run TDTC, also a listed company.
According to the indictment, Wang asked his close aide Chou Chi-peng (
Wang then asked Tsai Hau a board member of TDTC and Kao Chien-wen (高建文), the vice chairman, to push the board to make a decision to buy the land in November 1999. The move came hot on the heels of a report conducted by TDTC only a month earlier which concluded that such an investment was not worthwhile.
The prosecution has asked for a jail term of four years, 10 months for Wang and three years for Tsai. The trial is scheduled to begin on July 18.
ENDEAVOR MANTA: The ship is programmed to automatically return to its designated home port and would self-destruct if seized by another party The Endeavor Manta, Taiwan’s first military-specification uncrewed surface vehicle (USV) tailor-made to operate in the Taiwan Strait in a bid to bolster the nation’s asymmetric combat capabilities made its first appearance at Kaohsiung’s Singda Harbor yesterday. Taking inspiration from Ukraine’s navy, which is using USVs to force Russia’s Black Sea fleet to take shelter within its own ports, CSBC Taiwan (台灣國際造船) established a research and development unit on USVs last year, CSBC chairman Huang Cheng-hung (黃正弘) said. With the exception of the satellite guidance system and the outboard motors — which were purchased from foreign companies that were not affiliated with Chinese-funded
PERMIT REVOKED: The influencer at a news conference said the National Immigration Agency was infringing on human rights and persecuting Chinese spouses Chinese influencer “Yaya in Taiwan” (亞亞在台灣) yesterday evening voluntarily left Taiwan, despite saying yesterday morning that she had “no intention” of leaving after her residence permit was revoked over her comments on Taiwan being “unified” with China by military force. The Ministry of the Interior yesterday had said that it could forcibly deport the influencer at midnight, but was considering taking a more flexible approach and beginning procedures this morning. The influencer, whose given name is Liu Zhenya (劉振亞), departed on a 8:45pm flight from Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) to Fuzhou, China. Liu held a news conference at the airport at 7pm,
Authorities yesterday elaborated on the rules governing Employment Gold Cards after a US cardholder was barred from entering Taiwan for six years after working without a permit during a 2023 visit. American YouTuber LeLe Farley was barred after already being approved for an Employment Gold Card, he said in a video published on his channel on Saturday. Farley, who has more than 420,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel, was approved for his Gold Card last month, but was told at a check-in counter at the Los Angeles International Airport that he could not enter Taiwan. That was because he previously participated in two
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