A Pingtung County village warden was placed in pretrial detention for allegedly receiving money from Beijing to organize four trips to China last year, during which participants were told to vote for certain candidates, the Pingtung District Prosecutors’ Office said yesterday.
A filing by prosecutors said that witness testimonies, documents and personal phones seized from Ke Hong-teng (柯宏騰), warden of Jhongliao Village (中寮) in Pingtung County’s Fangliao Township (枋寮), showed that Ke organized trips to China in June, September and November last year, as well as last month.
Ke and another Pingtung man surnamed Lo (羅), who allegedly assisted in organizing the trips, were charged with contravening the Presidential and Vice Presidential Election and Recall Act (總統副總統選舉罷免法) and other election laws.
Photo: Lee Li-fa, Taipei Times
The number of local residents participating in the trips was unspecified.
Communications records on Ke’s personal phones indicate he has links to China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) officials, who, with the support of some Taiwanese businesspeople based in China, helped with the coordination and funding of the trips, prosecutors said.
“The trips led by Ke were mainly financed with TAO funding, with local Chinese officials paying for the participants’ accommodation, dinner banquets, tour guides and buses,” prosecutors said.
TAO officials met with Ke and tour groups to request that they vote for a certain party and its candidates in the elections on Saturday last week while emphasizing that “both sides of the Taiwan Strait are one family” and “Taiwan should unify with China peacefully,” they said.
Background checks showed that Ke conducted business in China for many years and returned to Taiwan in the past few years, then ran in the local elections in November 2022, when he became a village warden, prosecutors said.
Ke has also been acting as a deputy of the China Unification Promotion Party (CUPP) in southern Taiwan, they said.
After a preliminary investigation last month, prosecutors questioned Ke again this week, after he was denied bail on Thursday due to him being a possible flight risk and that he could tamper with evidence.
“Although the election is over, the nation’s justice system must not stop investigating election interference activities. Taiwan’s freedom and democracy should be safeguarded with rigorous efforts in investigating such misconduct,” prosecutors said.
The is the second case in Pingtung County this month regarding trips to China organized by local officials to influence voting behavior. In another case, two men were placed in pretrial detention.
In that investigation, two officials associated with the CUPP, surnamed Chang (張) and Huang (黃), led trips to China in September and October last year, Pingtung Chief Prosecutor Chen Ching-hui (陳靜慧) said in a statement.
The investigation showed that the duo took more than 20 voters to China’s Hunan and Jiangxi provinces, Chen said, adding that evidence indicates that all expenses were paid by local Chinese officials.
TAO officials met with the tour groups to tell them to vote for a specific political party and its candidates, Chan said.
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