The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by a former Legislative Yuan specialist who was sentenced to three years and two months in jail for helping more than 200 Chinese illegally enter Taiwan between 2018 and 2020.
The ruling, issued on Wednesday, is final and cannot be appealed.
The defendant, surnamed Lin (林), allegedly colluded with Taiwanese company Wisbet International Co from September 2018 to January 2020 to help 215 Chinese immigrants enter Taiwan, court documents showed.
Photo: Chang Wen-chuan, Taipei Times
Lin allegedly took advantage of his position to convince government agencies to approve applications filled with false personal information, the documents showed.
Lin allegedly made NT$1.98 million (US$61,202) helping the immigrants enter Taiwan, they showed.
During the trial at the Tainan District Court, Lin denied any wrongdoing and said he did not take any money from Wisbet.
However, an investigation showed that Lin earned money from each of the immigrants he helped bring to Taiwan, while evidence such as e-mails found on Lin’s office computer indicated that he understood he was contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the judges said.
According to the district court, despite Lin knowing Wisbet was helping Chinese immigrants enter Taiwan using falsified documents, he still helped them.
The immigrants allegedly engaged in illegal behavior such as gambling and money laundering after entering Taiwan, posing threats to national security, court documents said.
Lin was initially sentenced to three years and six months in jail, while the profits he allegedly made were confiscated by the district court.
Lin filed an appeal.
At a High Court hearing, Lin said he did not intend to threaten national security, adding that he was not in contact with anyone from China directly, only helping submit petitions to government entities, such as the National Immigration Agency.
Lin asked the High Court to reduce his jail term in accordance with Article 59 of the Criminal Code, which allows a court to reduce a sentence if the offense is “so pitiable that even the minimum punishment is considered too severe.
The High Court ruled that Lin was more involved in helping the immigrants enter Taiwan than Wisbet employees, and the profits he made were higher than the administrative fees required to file the applications, making it difficult to determine whether Lin was not attempting to make money helping the immigrants.
In addition, the people he helped were found to have engaged in activities that contravened Taiwan’s laws and harmed social stability.
As Lin admitted his wrongdoing at the High Court hearing and returned all the profits he made helping the immigrants, his jail term was reduced to three years and two months, the court said.
Nevertheless, Lin appealed the ruling, but the Supreme Court ruled that the High Court verdict was reasonable, and rejected his appeal.
Meanwhile, the Legislative Yuan also handed Lin over to the Disciplinary Court, where he was given a two-year suspension after a second instance judgement issued last year.
An undersea cable to Penghu County has been severed, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said today, with a Chinese-funded ship suspected of being responsible. It comes just a month after a Chinese ship was suspected of severing an undersea cable north of Keelung Harbor. The National Communications and Cyber Security Center received a report at 3:03am today from Chunghwa Telecom that the No. 3 cable from Taiwan to Penghu was severed 14.7km off the coast of Tainan, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) upon receiving a report from Chunghwa Telecom began to monitor the Togolese-flagged Hong Tai (宏泰)
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
RISING TOURISM: A survey showed that tourist visits increased by 35 percent last year, while newly created attractions contributed almost half of the growth Changhua County’s Lukang Old Street (鹿港老街) and its surrounding historical area clinched first place among Taiwan’s most successful tourist attractions last year, while no location in eastern Taiwan achieved a spot in the top 20 list, the Tourism Administration said. The listing was created by the Tourism Administration’s Forward-looking Tourism Policy Research office. Last year, the Lukang Old Street and its surrounding area had 17.3 million visitors, more than the 16 million visitors for the Wenhua Road Night Market (文化路夜市) in Chiayi City and 14.5 million visitors at Tainan’s Anping (安平) historical area, it said. The Taipei 101 skyscraper and its environs —
Taiwan on Friday said a New Zealand hamburger restaurant has apologized for a racist remark to a Taiwanese customer after reports that it had first apologized to China sparked outrage in Taiwan. An image posted on Threads by a Taiwanese who ate at Fergburger in Queenstown showed that their receipt dated Sunday last week included the words “Ching Chang,” a racial slur. The Chinese Consulate-General in Christchurch in a statement on Thursday said it had received and accepted an apology from the restaurant over the incident. The comment triggered an online furor among Taiwanese who saw it as an insult to the
RSS