Prosecutors in Changhua, Taichung, Chiayi and Yunlin are all investigating cases of alleged bribery related to Saturday's legislative elections, officials said yesterday.
In Changhua County, former National Assembly member Chen Pao-bin (
"We have been recording his conversations and phone calls and following him for a while. We realized that he is a heavyweight vote captain for a local candidate," said Chen Sung-chi (
Chen Sung-chi said a gag order prevented him from identifying the candidate.
According to the prosecutors' office, Chen Pao-bin said he had been helping the unidentified candidate before he was detained yesterday.
Independent candidate Chiang Chu-sheng's (江春盛) vote captain Wu Chin-ho (吳金河) was detained for allegedly buying votes for Chiang. Prosecutors discovered NT$380,000 in alleged bribe money at Wu's office.
Wu denied that he had been involved in bribery, but was arrested on the strength of statements by 16 people who admitted that they had accepted bribes from him.
Liu Sung-wu (
Yen yesterday denied any involvement in such a plan.
"I did not know that he would do this. I did not ask him to do so, either," Yen said.
In Chiayi, prosecutors received secret tips from unidentified sources claiming that Chen Yu-lin (
Prosecutors questioned and released Chen Yu-lin, Chang and 29 other people, who all denied involvement in bribery.
In Yunlin, prosecutors investigated bribery claims against the father of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislative candidate Chang Sho-wen (張碩文). Investigators found a list of voters' names, as well as free giveaways including little flags and flyers for Chang Sho-wen's campaign, at the office of his father, Chang Hui-yuan (張輝元).
Chang Sho-wen's spokeswoman, Chang Yu-hsuan (
"Chang Sho-wen is one of the candidates who is strongly against vote-buying. We hope that prosecutors can go through the details to determine if our political enemies are trying to take advantage of these false allegations to defeat us," Chang Yu-hsuan said.
Police have issued warnings against traveling to Cambodia or Thailand when others have paid for the travel fare in light of increasing cases of teenagers, middle-aged and elderly people being tricked into traveling to these countries and then being held for ransom. Recounting their ordeal, one victim on Monday said she was asked by a friend to visit Thailand and help set up a bank account there, for which they would be paid NT$70,000 to NT$100,000 (US$2,136 to US$3,051). The victim said she had not found it strange that her friend was not coming along on the trip, adding that when she
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to