Five people have been listed as suspects in a judicial corruption investigation in Nantou County, with prosecutors detaining township office secretary Hu Chin-lung (胡錦龍) for alleged involvement in bid rigging and profiteering in more than 200 contractor projects in the past five years.
Taichung prosecutors on Wednesday carried out searches to gather evidence and served summonses to 11 people for questioning, including five listed as suspects and six as witnesses or people related to the case.
Hu and his younger brother, Hu Chin-pin (胡錦斌), had allegedly reaped NT$21.89 million (US$678,760) in illegal revenue since 2019, they said.
Photo: Chen Chien-chih, Taipei
The brothers face charges of bid rigging for profiteering, conflict of interest and other offenses under the Anti-Corruption Act (貪污治罪條例), Taichung prosecutor Huang Yu-wen (黃鈺雯) said.
They are allegedly the owners of Lichuan Civil Engineering Contractor Co, which is registered in Taichung, but undertakes construction and public projects in Nantou County, where Hu Chin-pin serves as secretary, Huang said.
The brothers allegedly listed a woman surnamed Ma (馬) as a nominal owner to circumvent laws prohibiting conflict of interest, given Hu had the power to choose contractors for 227 public projects under Sinyi Township (信義) Office over the past five years, the prosecutor said.
Lichuan Civil Engineering won most of these small projects, such as road maintenance and repair, drainage gutter and irrigation canal work, and reconstruction contracts after heavy rain and flooding, Huang said.
The costs of the projects were set at less than NT$100,000, the upper limit for not needing to open a tender bid at local government offices, Huang added.
After questioning, Hu Chin-pin and his brother were detained on Thursday, as prosecutors said they were a flight risk and could collude in testimonies or tamper with evidence.
This is not the first corruption case implicating the same office. Given Sinyi Township’s mountainous terrain, it is prone to typhoon, flooding, landslide and earthquake damage, so the local government often issues reconstruction projects for repairing roads, transportation networks, drainage systems and irrigation canals.
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