A woman’s efforts to avoid paying about NT$3,000 for two Taipei-to-Kaohsiung trips on the Taiwan High Speed Rail could end up costing her and her boyfriend NT$130,000.
The woman, surnamed Liu (劉), used to work for Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp (THSR, 台灣高鐵).
Liu and her boyfriend, surnamed Kuo (郭), were on Saturday fined NT$40,000 each in lieu of a 40-day jail term by the Ciaotou District Court in Kaohsiung.
They have already paid the company NT$25,000 each in settlement for their fare-dodging actions.
According to the court verdict, Liu bought an unreserved seat ticket from Taipei to Banciao by using a ticket vending machine on May 27 last year, which cost her NT$35.
However, she stayed on the train all the way to Kaohsiung.
While on the train, Liu called Kuo and asked him to go to the THSR Zuoying Station and buy a Zuoying-to-Tainan ticket.
Kuo bought a ticket and swiped it at one of the entrance turnstiles, but did not go through the turnstile.
After Liu arrived at the station, the couple rendezvoused in a secluded area and Kuo passed her the ticket that he had bought.
Liu then went to THSR staff and told them that something had come up and she could not make her planned trip to Tainan.
They let her out of the station’s departure-arrival enclosure and she turned in the Tainan ticket that Kuo had purchased and received a refund minus a processing fee of NT$20, which meant she paid just NT$55 for the trip from Taipei.
However, when the couple tried to repeat the trick on June 6, THSR staff did not fall for the ruse and called the police.
After considering that the couple had admitted to fare dodging and had already reached a settlement with THSRC, the district court sentenced them each to 40 days in jail for fraud or a NT$40,000 fine.
The verdict can be appealed.
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
SHIFT: Taiwan’s better-than-expected first-quarter GDP and signs of weakness in the US have driven global capital back to emerging markets, the central bank head said The central bank yesterday blamed market speculation for the steep rise in the local currency, and urged exporters and financial institutions to stay calm and stop panic sell-offs to avoid hurting their own profitability. The nation’s top monetary policymaker said that it would step in, if necessary, to maintain order and stability in the foreign exchange market. The remarks came as the NT dollar yesterday closed up NT$0.919 to NT$30.145 against the US dollar in Taipei trading, after rising as high as NT$29.59 in intraday trading. The local currency has surged 5.85 percent against the greenback over the past two sessions, central
RSS