The Cabinet yesterday approved a draft amendment of the Organized Crime Prevention Act (組織犯罪條例) to aggravate penalties for criminals involved in luring people into extraterritorial organized crime, after a number of Cambodia-based scam operations were found to have Taiwanese associates.
Currently, according to the Act, the recruitment of people to organized crime would be punished by a jail sentence of between six months and five years and a fine of up to NT$10 million, regardless of whether the crimes take place in Taiwan or overseas.
Under the proposed amendment, any offense related to recruiting Taiwanese to join a criminal organization outside the territory of the Republic of China would result in a prison sentence of between one and seven years, and a fine of up to NT$20 million (US$653,648), according to the Cabinet.
Photo: Chiu Chun-fu, Taipei Times
If offenders target victims who are under 18, the punishment will be increased by up to half.
Meanwhile, the amendment added a clause stating that the property of any group which supports a criminal organization such as providing funding or recruitment shall be confiscated after deducting any amount belonging to victims.
The amendment, drafted by the Ministry of Justice, will be referred by the Cabinet to the Legislature for deliberation.
Should the amendment pass the Legislature, people convicted for involvement in trafficking Taiwanese to Cambodia to work for criminal organizations engaged in activities such as telecom fraud, sexual exploitation and organ removal, shall be subject to the more severe punishment, the ministry said in a statement.
As of Dec. 12, the government has assisted in the return of 403 Taiwanese, many of whom were allegedly lured to Cambodia with offers of fake lucrative jobs and then forced to work for criminal organizations, but around 300 people are believed to still be held in the country against their will, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ (MOFA) news release.
TENSIONS: The Chinese aircraft and vessels were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a joint air and sea military exercise, the Ministry of National Defense said A relatively large number of Chinese military aircraft and vessels were detected in Taiwan’s vicinity yesterday morning, apparently en route to a Chinese military exercise in the western Pacific, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. In a statement, the ministry said 36 Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft, including J-16 fighters and nuclear-capable H-6 bombers, crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait or an extension of it, and were detected in the southern and southeastern parts of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) from 5:20am to 9:30am yesterday. They were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a
Honor guards are to stop performing changing of the guard ceremonies around a statue of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) to avoid “worshiping authoritarianism,” the Ministry of Culture said yesterday. The fate of the bronze statue has long been the subject of fierce and polarizing debate in Taiwan, which has transformed from an autocracy under Chiang into one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies. The changing of the guard each hour at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei is a major tourist attraction, but starting from 9am on Monday, the ceremony is to be moved outdoors to Democracy Boulevard, outside the eponymous blue-and-white memorial
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) supports peaceful unification with China, and President William Lai (賴清德) is “a bit naive” for being a “practical worker for Taiwanese independence,” former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said in an interview published yesterday. Asked about whether the KMT is on the same page as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on the issue of Taiwanese independence or unification with China, Ma told the Malaysian Chinese-language newspaper Sin Chew Daily that they are not. While the KMT supports peaceful unification and is against unification by force, the DPP opposes unification as such and
CASES SLOWING: Although weekly COVID-19 cases are rising, the growth rate has been falling, from 90 percent to 30 percent, 14 percent and 6 percent, the CDC said COVID-19 hospitalizations last week rose 6 percent to 987, while deaths soared 55 percent to 99, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, adding that the recent wave of infections would likely peak this week. People aged 65 or older accounted for 79 percent of the hospitalizations and 90 percent of the deaths, the majority of whom have or had underlying health conditions, CDC data showed. The youngest hospitalized case last week was a six-month-old, who was born preterm and was unvaccinated, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said. The infant had a fever, coughing and a runny nose early this month, but