The Taipei District Court yesterday sentenced Farglory Group founder Chao Teng-hsiung (趙藤雄) to seven years in prison on bribery and corruption charges.
New Taipei City Councilor Chou Sheng-kao (周勝考) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) was sentenced to 10 years and six months in prison on charges of giving and accepting bribes.
Former Taipei Department of Finance commissioner Lee Sush-der (李述德) was sentenced to nine years in prison and five years of disenfranchisement for financially benefiting Farglory Land Development Co, the main contractor for the Taipei Dome project.
Taipei Times file photo
Hung Chia-hung (洪嘉宏), former head of the Construction and Planning Agency’s Urban and Rural Development Branch, was sentenced to eight years and two months in prison on charges including taking bribes and hiding funds.
Hai Chih-ping (海治平), the division head of planning review at the New Taipei City Urban and Rural Development Department, was sentenced to four years and 10 months for bribery.
The verdicts can be appealed.
Prosecutors indicted 31 people in 2017 on charges of bribery and breach of trust in cases involving several public construction projects including the Taipei Dome.
Authorities investigated Chao on suspicion of embezzlement of funds from Farglory Life Insurance Co in 2007 and 2008, and bribery of New Taipei City officials in 2013 to obtain contracts for two real-estate development projects — the rezoning of a former coal mine in New Taipei City’s Tucheng District (土城) and a factory in the city’s Sinjhuang District (新莊).
The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office had sought a jail term of 24 years for the 78-year-old Chao.
He was released on record bail of NT$550 million (US$17.11 million) and ordered to report to his local police station every day.
A collegial panel in July 2020 reduced the frequency that Chao had to report to the station to four times a week, on the condition that he pay additional bail of NT$250 million, with his sons Frank Chao (趙文嘉) and George Chao (趙信清) as guarantors.
Farglory Group general manager Jacky Yang (楊舜欽) said that bidding for the Taipei Dome project was conducted legally.
The group did not make illegal profits from the project, Yang said.
Asked about Chao’s sentence, Yang said it was regrettable that the judge did not accept Chao’s explanations, but the group firmly believes that he did not engage in illegal acts.
In response to the court’s judgement, Yang said that the company would facilitate corporate sustainability, adopt a more professional management system, enhance its corporate governance and improve its structure, culture and internal regulations.
Farglory is operating normally and growing steadily, he added.
The coast guard drove away 567 Chinese boats and seized seven illegally operating in Taiwanese waters in the first six months of this year, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. They mostly operated near Kinmen and Penghu counties, resulting in fines totaling NT$1.7 million (US$52,440), it said. Three ships — two near Kinmen County and one near Penghu County — were detained in January for illegally crossing the border, while one ship each was detained near Kinmen in February and Penghu in March respectively, it said. The ship seized near Penghu in January was the Yun Ao (雲澳), detained by the CGA’s
The entire Alishan Forest Railway line is to reopen for the first time in 15 years on Saturday, with tickets to go on sale at 2pm today. The historic railway from Chiayi to Alishan (阿里山) is finally set to reopen after the completion of the final No. 42 tunnel, Alishan Forest Railway and Cultural Heritage Office Deputy Director-General Chou Heng-kai (周恆凱) said. It is to run on a new timetable, with four trains daily, he said. The 9am train is to depart from Chiayi Railway Station bound for Shizilu Station (十字路), while the 10am train departing from Chiayi is to go all the
FLU CONTINUES: Hospitals reported 101,091 visits for flu-like illnesses last week, while 68 severe cases and 16 flu-related deaths were also reported, the CDC said The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported 932 hospitalizations due to COVID-19 and 64 related deaths for last week, adding that the number of people who had contracted new SARS-CoV-2 subvariants KP.2 and LB.1 has increased. The number of people hospitalized due to COVID-19 increased from 815 in the previous week to 932 last week, while 90 percent of the 64 deceased were aged 65 or older, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said. JN.1 was still the dominant variant among local and imported cases in the past four weeks, while KP.2 was the second-most common, Lin said. Cases with the LB.1 subvariant
Beijing’s recent provocative actions against the Philippines in the South China Sea were partly meant as a “dress rehearsal” for the invasion of Taiwan, former US deputy national security advisor Matt Pottinger said at a Heritage Foundation forum in Washington on Tuesday. Beijing’s blocking of a Philippine resupply mission on June 17 with unprecedented violence had multiple implications. “What they’re doing is trying to demonstrate that they can blockade, create a sense of futility and discredit the idea that the United States is going to help not only the Philippines, but by extension Taiwan,” Pottinger said. Pottinger was referring to a clash