Taiwan will continue efforts to track down nearly US$30 million that was allegedly stolen by two diplomatic brokers three years ago, the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said on Sunday.
Local prosecutors said they have maintained contact with their counterparts in Singapore and the US in a bid to recover the US$29.8 million (NT$965 million) that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) wired to a Singapore bank account on Sept. 15, 2006, ostensibly to facilitate the establishment of diplomatic ties with Papua New Guinea.
The money was remitted to an account at Singapore’s OCBC Bank jointly held by the two brokers, Wu Shih-tsai (吳思材), a Singaporean national, and his partner, Ching Chi-ju (金紀玖), a Taiwanese with a US passport who was commissioned by the ministry in 2006 to help facilitate the deal.
The ministry asked Wu and Ching for a statement of the account early last year after discovering that by Dec. 1, 2006, all the money in the joint account had disappeared without any progress being made with Papua New Guinea.
Wu, without knowing that the ministry was aware of the fraud, produced a false bank statement on a notebook computer and gave it to the ministry.
He was taken into custody by prosecutors in May last year and indicted for forging the bank statement and lying to the police after he made up a story about being threatened by an unidentified gunman. He was found guilty of the charges a month later and sentenced to 28 months in prison.
Prosecutors said NT$300 million in bank accounts held by Wu and Ching and property Wu bought in Taipei City had been frozen. Some NT$70 million of the assets were in Wu’s name.
The Singapore High Court ruled on Saturday that the S$2.1 million (US$1.49 million) that had been in another of Wu’s accounts at OCBC Bank be returned to the Taiwanese authorities.
Meanwhile, Taipei prosecutors listed Ching, who is said to be living in California, as one of Taiwan’s most wanted fugitives last May as they continued their investigation into the case.
The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said it had asked for judicial assistance from the US government and suggested that US prosecutors question Ching on Taiwan’s behalf or allow Taiwanese prosecutors to travel to California to question Ching.
They have yet to receive a response from the US government.
Rain is to increase from Wednesday morning as Severe Tropical Storm Kong-Rey approaches, with sea warnings to be issued as early as tomorrow afternoon, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. As of 8am, Kong-Rey was 1,050km east-southeast of the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春) heading in a northwesterly direction toward Taiwan, CWA Forecast Center Director Lin Po-tung (林伯東) said. Rainfall is to increase from Wednesday morning, especially in northern Taiwan and Yilan County, he said. A sea warning is possible from tomorrow afternoon, while a land warning may be issued on Wednesday morning, he added. Kong-Rey may intensify into a moderate typhoon as it passes
Hong Kong singer Andy Lau’s (劉德華) concert in Taipei tonight has been cancelled due to Typhoon Kong-rei and is to be held at noon on Saturday instead, the concert organizer SuperDome said in a statement this afternoon. Tonight’s concert at Taipei Arena was to be the first of four consecutive nightly performances by Lau in Taipei, but it was called off at the request of Taipei Metro, the operator of the venue, due to the weather, said the organizer. Taipei Metro said the concert was cancelled out of consideration for the audience’s safety. The decision disappointed a number of Lau’s fans who had
Taiwan yesterday issued warnings to four Chinese coast guard vessels that intruded into restricted waters around the Taiwan-controlled Kinmen Islands, according to the Coast Guard Administration (CGA). The four China Coast Guard ships were detected approaching restricted waters south of Kinmen at around 2 pm yesterday, the CGA’s Kinmen-Matsu Branch said in a statement. The CGA said it immediately deployed four patrol boats to closely monitor the situation. When the Chinese ships with the hull numbers "14512," "14609," "14603" and "14602" separately entered the restricted waters off Fuhsing islet (復興嶼), Zhaishan (翟山), Sinhu (新湖) and Liaoluo (料羅) at 3 pm, the Taiwanese patrol
A former member of the US Naval Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU), formerly known as SEAL Team 6, said in an interview with Business Insider that the elite unit’s role in a Taiwan Strait conflict would be more limited than some might expect. The report follows an earlier one in September by the Financial Times, which said the “clandestine US Navy commando unit” has been training for missions to help Taiwan if it is invaded by China. “You don’t use a scalpel for a job a hammer can do,” the former Navy Seal said to Business Insider on condition of anonymity.
RSS