The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday summoned 14 people for questioning amid a probe into alleged securities fraud at Pharmally International Holding Co, while an international warrant was issued for Pharmally chairman Tony Huang (黃文烈), who reportedly is in Singapore.
Huang allegedly colluded with Chinese businessmen to falsify accounts and financial statements in one of the largest securities fraud cases in recent years involving a Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE)-listed firm.
People with shares of Pharmally, which touted itself as a leading pharmaceutical and biotech business, face an estimated NT$1.5 billion (US$50.81 million) in losses with its stock value in tatters.
Prosecutors said that Huang illegally transferred NT$700 million into his personal bank accounts.
Four banks — Entie Commercial Bank, Far Eastern International Bank, Hua Nan Bank and Bank SinoPac — face non-performing loans after lending to Pharmally, investigators said.
A group of three businesspeople, headed by Tsai Shui-ping (蔡水濱), who are involved in real estate and construction in central Taiwan invested heavily in Pharmally face combined losses of NT$2.2 billion, investigators said.
Huang and other Pharmally executives who have left Taiwan face charges for alleged contraventions of the Securities and Exchange Act (證券交易法), stock manipulation, fraud in financial statements and illicit transfers of company assets, prosecutors said.
An international warrant for Huang is valid for 37 years, they said.
Huang has reportedly not been seen in Taiwan since early this month.
Prosecutors said that employees of accounting firm Deloitte & Touche Taiwan allegedly colluded for several years with Pharmally executives to forge reports and financial statements.
In the first round of raids on Monday, Shih Ching-pin (施景彬) and Chiang Ming-nan (江明南), two accountants at Deloitte & Touche Taiwan, were questioned.
They were released on NT$300,000 bail.
Pharmally executives including its chief financial officer, general manager and spokesman, as well as members of the board of directors announced their resignations after the allegations were reported last week, with reports listing most of them as Chinese nationals.
The TWSE on Tuesday suspended trading on Pharmally shares.
Pharmally has production sites in China’s Anhui Province and offices in several Chinese cities.
The firm’s Web site says that its founding Chaoyang Chemical Plant in China in 1997 was restructured as Anhui Chaoyang Pharmaceutical Co.
Huang bought Anhui Chaoyang and set up Pharmally in China in 2013 and gained approval to list on the TWSE in March 2015, the Web site says.
Pharmally in 2016 set up Pharmbac Biological Holding in Singapore and the same year was registered in the Cayman Islands, while in 2017 it established a joint venture with PT Biotis Agrisindo to conduct animal vaccine research and production in Indonesia, the site says.
Taipei and New Taipei City government officials are aiming to have the first phase of the Wanhua-Jungho-Shulin Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) line completed and opened by 2027, following the arrival of the first train set yesterday. The 22km-long Light Green Line would connect four densely populated districts in Taipei and New Taipei City: Wanhua (萬華), Jhonghe (中和), Tucheng (土城) and Shulin (樹林). The first phase of the project would connect Wanhua and Jhonghe districts, with Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall and Chukuang (莒光) being the terminal stations. The two municipalities jointly hosted a ceremony for the first train to be used
MILITARY AID: Taiwan has received a first batch of US long-range tactical missiles ahead of schedule, with a second shipment expected to be delivered by 2026 The US’ early delivery of long-range tactical ballistic missiles to Taiwan last month carries political and strategic significance, a military source said yesterday. According to the Ministry of National Defense’s budget report, the batch of military hardware from the US, including 11 sets of M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and 64 MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile Systems, had been scheduled to be delivered to Taiwan between the end of this year and the beginning of next year. However, the first batch arrived last month, earlier than scheduled, with the second batch —18 sets of HIMARS, 20 MGM-140 missiles and 864 M30
Representative to the US Alexander Yui delivered a letter from the government to US president-elect Donald Trump during a meeting with a former Trump administration official, CNN reported yesterday. Yui on Thursday met with former US national security adviser Robert O’Brien over a private lunch in Salt Lake City, Utah, with US Representative Chris Stewart, the Web site of the US cable news channel reported, citing three sources familiar with the matter. “During that lunch the letter was passed along, and then shared with Trump, two of the sources said,” CNN said. O’Brien declined to comment on the lunch, as did the Taipei
A woman who allegedly attacked a high-school student with a utility knife, injuring his face, on a Taipei metro train late on Friday has been transferred to prosecutors, police said yesterday. The incident occurred near MRT Xinpu Station at about 10:17pm on a Bannan Line train headed toward Dingpu, New Taipei City police said. Before police arrived at the station to arrest the suspect, a woman surnamed Wang (王) who is in her early 40s, she had already been subdued by four male passengers, one of whom was an off-duty Taipei police officer, police said. The student, 17, who sustained a cut about
RSS