Liu Kuan-chun (劉冠軍), former chief of the payments section of the National Security Bureau (NSB), and his wife Meng Wen-hua (孟雯華), who are on the run after being accused of having embezzled NT$190 million (US$6 million) from secret bureau funds were yesterday ordered to repay the funds by the Taipei District Court.
The NSB sued the couple for NT$60 million in order to regain some of its losses and the court yesterday handed down a judgment ordering the two to return the NT$60 million plus interest accumulated from 2002 until the debt is paid off.
The case can be appealed again.
The verdict states that Liu’s position had put him in control of NT$30 billion related to several large projects. The funds were kept in time deposit bank accounts and Liu used his position to understate the interest received and saved it in a private time deposit account, thus embezzling NT$192,207,000.
The NSB claims that Liu used more than NT$38 million to buy a Taipei house in his wife’s name, and that the rest was invested in US dollar travelers checks, shares and personal spending.
Liu, who left Taiwan with his wife in 2000, is one of the nation’s top ten most wanted criminals. The Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau traced Liu to Bangkok in January 2002 and then he went to North America.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) and Chunghwa Telecom yesterday confirmed that an international undersea cable near Keelung Harbor had been cut by a Chinese ship, the Shunxin-39, a freighter registered in Cameroon. Chunghwa Telecom said the cable had its own backup equipment, and the incident would not affect telecommunications within Taiwan. The CGA said it dispatched a ship under its first fleet after receiving word of the incident and located the Shunxin-39 7 nautical miles (13km) north of Yehliu (野柳) at about 4:40pm on Friday. The CGA demanded that the Shunxin-39 return to seas closer to Keelung Harbor for investigation over the
National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology (NKUST) yesterday promised it would increase oversight of use of Chinese in course materials, following a social media outcry over instances of simplified Chinese characters being used, including in a final exam. People on Threads wrote that simplified Chinese characters were used on a final exam and in a textbook for a translation course at the university, while the business card of a professor bore the words: “Taiwan Province, China.” Photographs of the exam, the textbook and the business card were posted with the comments. NKUST said that other members of the faculty did not see
An apartment building in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重) collapsed last night after a nearby construction project earlier in the day allegedly caused it to tilt. Shortly after work began at 9am on an ongoing excavation of a construction site on Liuzhang Street (六張街), two neighboring apartment buildings tilted and cracked, leading to exterior tiles peeling off, city officials said. The fire department then dispatched personnel to help evacuate 22 residents from nine households. After the incident, the city government first filled the building at No. 190, which appeared to be more badly affected, with water to stabilize the
EARTHQUAKE: Taipei and New Taipei City accused a construction company of ignoring the Circular MRT’s original design, causing sections to shift by up to 92cm The Taipei and New Taipei City governments yesterday said they would seek NT$1.93 billion (US$58.6 million) in compensation from the company responsible for building the Circular MRT Line, following damage sustained during an earthquake in April last year that had shuttered a section for months. BES Engineering Corp, a listed company under Core Pacific Group, was accused of ignoring the original design when constructing the MRT line, resulting in negative shear strength resistance and causing sections of the rail line between Jhonghe (中和) and Banciao (板橋) districts to shift by up to 92cm during the April 3 earthquake. The pot bearings on
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