Police have made two arrests related to an election betting operation allegedly headed by a Chinese operator with the intention of influencing Taiwan’s elections, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said on Thursday.
The two male suspects surnamed Lee (李), 22, and Liu (劉), 30, were arrested in New Taipei City and Hsinchu County respectively, and detained for questioning earlier this month, officials from the CIB office in Taichung said in a news release.
Evidence points to Liu, who has prior criminal convictions, as the leader of the betting pool, acting as the representative for the mastermind based in China, the CIB said, adding that the person in China instructed Lee and other ring members to collect money, handle transactions and keep accounts.
Photo courtesy of the CIB Taichung office
Police investigators said they last month came upon an advertisement of “Betting on 2024 Presidential Election with given odds and latest poll figures,” on a Facebook page registered to a foreign IP address, the bureau said.
From a voice recording of a conversation between the mastermind and Liu, investigators deduced that the mastermind is Chinese, as his accent and word choice indicated as much, they said.
The betting scheme was likely organized by groups in China to influence the outcome of the presidential election in January, investigators said.
The investigators found five people had made bets of up to NT$50,000, the bureau said.
Prosecutors questioned the two suspects, who are facing charges on money laundering offenses and breaching of the Presidential and Vice Presidential Election and Recall Act (總統副總統選舉罷免法) and the Public Officials Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法).
“Election betting pools usually have large transaction flows. They can cause damage to democratic elections, at times even more than traditional vote-buying,” Prosecutor-General Hsing Tai-Chao (邢泰釗) said.
By tracing the money, prosecutors have found that illegal election betting in Taiwan is promoted mainly on social media, with significant financing by companies in southeast Asian countries, he said.
“These companies are based overseas, but target Taiwanese with their online gambling businesses, and now they offer bets on election outcomes,” he said. “They are likely using underground channels and cryptocurrencies to transfer a large amount of funds into Taiwan, and many of them either have Chinese owners or they are financed to serve Chinese interests.”
“We must enhance efforts to crack down, as they should be considered as hostile forces aiming to meddle in elections,” Hsing said.
Yunlin County Chief Prosecutor Tai Wen-liang (戴文亮) said that in past years, investigators have observed increasingly more illegal gambling on election outcomes, in which operators receive large sums of funds from unknown sources to skew the odds to entice people to bet on particular candidates.
“Those who place large wagers would go to their relatives and friends to persuade them to cast their vote for a certain candidate, or to bet,” Tai said.
WANG RELEASED: A police investigation showed that an organized crime group allegedly taught their clients how to pretend to be sick during medical exams Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) and 11 others were released on bail yesterday, after being questioned for allegedly dodging compulsory military service or forging documents to help others avoid serving. Wang, 33, was catapulted into stardom for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代). Lately, he has been focusing on developing his entertainment career in China. The New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last month began investigating an organized crime group that is allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified documents. Police in New Taipei City Yonghe Precinct at the end of last month arrested the main suspect,
A cat named Mikan (蜜柑) has brought in revenue of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390) for the Kaohsiung MRT last year. Mikan, born on April 4, 2020, was a stray cat before being adopted by personnel of Kaohsiung MRT’s Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station. Mikan was named after a Japanese term for mandarin orange due to his color and because he looks like an orange when curled up. He was named “station master” of Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station in September 2020, and has since become famous. With Kaohsiung MRT’s branding, along with the release of a set of cultural and creative products, station master Mikan
Eleven people, including actor Darren Wang (王大陸), were taken into custody today for questioning regarding the evasion of compulsory military service and document forgery, the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said. Eight of the people, including Wang, are suspected of evading military service, while three are suspected of forging medical documents to assist them, the report said. They are all being questioned by police and would later be transferred to the prosecutors’ office for further investigation. Three men surnamed Lee (李), Chang (張) and Lin (林) are suspected of improperly assisting conscripts in changing their military classification from “stand-by
LITTORAL REGIMENTS: The US Marine Corps is transitioning to an ‘island hopping’ strategy to counterattack Beijing’s area denial strategy The US Marine Corps (USMC) has introduced new anti-drone systems to bolster air defense in the Pacific island chain amid growing Chinese military influence in the region, The Telegraph reported on Sunday. The new Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) Mk 1 is being developed to counter “the growing menace of unmanned aerial systems,” it cited the Marine Corps as saying. China has constructed a powerful defense mechanism in the Pacific Ocean west of the first island chain by deploying weapons such as rockets, submarines and anti-ship missiles — which is part of its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy against adversaries — the
RSS