Prosecutors should look into the SET Group’s possible links with ACE Exchange, a cryptocurrency trading platform whose founders have been indicted for fraud, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wang Hung-wei (王鴻薇) said on Thursday.
The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office in late April indicted 32 people on fraud and money laundering charges related to ACE Exchange, seeking sentences of at least 20 years for the four primary suspects, including ACE Exchange founder David Pan (潘奕彰) and his business partner Lin Keng-hong (林耿宏).
Prosecutors said that more than 1,200 people were defrauded of an estimated total of NT$800 million (US$24.63 million).
Photo: Tien Yu-hua, Taipei Times
Wang said that Yi Chuan Holdings Co manager Hsieh Shih-ying (謝詩瑩) is under investigation for allegedly helping the group launder money, adding that Hsieh had close ties with the SET Group and Yi Chuan was founded with a joint investment from SET Group subsidiary Create Intelligence Inc.
Former deputy general manager of the SET’s media department, Lin Hui-chen (林慧珍), served as Yi Chuan’s supervisor, Wang said.
Yi Chuang was located on the third floor of the SET Group headquarters, and within a month of Yi Chuan’s founding, the SET Metro channel had aired Biboverse (Bibo願望合夥人), a program which was exclusively funded by ACE Exchange, she said.
The SET Group must explain the nature of its relations with a company allegedly involved in the fraud, she said, adding that the prosecutors should look into whether the funding for the program came from illegal sources.
Wang also called on the National Communications Commission to launch an investigation.
In response, Lin, who is also a manager at Create Intelligence Inc, said the company had terminated its collaboration with Yi Chuan when Hsieh was detained for alleged involvement in the ACE Exchange fraud investigations.
Create Intelligence has not invested in any cryptocurrency projects and has never collaborated with a company engaged in fraud, she said, adding that prosecutors should investigate the issue.
Lin said Biboverse was produced by a respected company, but SET canceled the program after the alleged illegal activities of the producer were revealed.
Separately, Taiwan People’s Party Legislator Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) on Thursday said that two veteran journalists, one surnamed Chiang (姜) and the other surnamed Lee (李), were also indicted for their alleged involvement in the case.
Huang said both had ties with the SET Group and they were indicted for allegedly encouraging people to invest in the Chaebol platform, which was selling non-fungible tokens (NFT).
Huang said that the group also established a company, Minsheng Technology and Media Co, as a content farm creating fake news promoting Chaebol.
On Wednesday, Huang said at the legislature’s Education and Culture Committee that the state-run Central News Agency (CNA) had run an article on March 28 last year promoting Chaebol and the NFTs it was selling.
Huang called for an investigation on why the CNA uploaded such an article and if it had been deceived.
In response, Minister of Culture Li Yuan (李遠) said his ministry would look into the issue.
The coast guard drove away 567 Chinese boats and seized seven illegally operating in Taiwanese waters in the first six months of this year, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. They mostly operated near Kinmen and Penghu counties, resulting in fines totaling NT$1.7 million (US$52,440), it said. Three ships — two near Kinmen County and one near Penghu County — were detained in January for illegally crossing the border, while one ship each was detained near Kinmen in February and Penghu in March respectively, it said. The ship seized near Penghu in January was the Yun Ao (雲澳), detained by the CGA’s
The entire Alishan Forest Railway line is to reopen for the first time in 15 years on Saturday, with tickets to go on sale at 2pm today. The historic railway from Chiayi to Alishan (阿里山) is finally set to reopen after the completion of the final No. 42 tunnel, Alishan Forest Railway and Cultural Heritage Office Deputy Director-General Chou Heng-kai (周恆凱) said. It is to run on a new timetable, with four trains daily, he said. The 9am train is to depart from Chiayi Railway Station bound for Shizilu Station (十字路), while the 10am train departing from Chiayi is to go all the
Military photovoltaic projects have been found to have used Chinese-made devices blacklisted by the government, including Huawei Technologies Co routers, the Ministry of National Defense’s Armaments Bureau said on Thursday. An ongoing investigation has identified the illegal use of 128 current transformers, two routers and a data reader at the Hungchailin Army Base, Pinghai Navy Base and Tri-Service General Hospital’s Songshan branch, it said. The devices were manufactured in the Chinese factories of German solar energy equipment supplier SMA Solar Technology, Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Delta Electronics Co, Chinese electronics manufacturer Huawei and Taiwanese industrial PC maker Advantech Co, the bureau said. The bureau’s
FLU CONTINUES: Hospitals reported 101,091 visits for flu-like illnesses last week, while 68 severe cases and 16 flu-related deaths were also reported, the CDC said The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported 932 hospitalizations due to COVID-19 and 64 related deaths for last week, adding that the number of people who had contracted new SARS-CoV-2 subvariants KP.2 and LB.1 has increased. The number of people hospitalized due to COVID-19 increased from 815 in the previous week to 932 last week, while 90 percent of the 64 deceased were aged 65 or older, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said. JN.1 was still the dominant variant among local and imported cases in the past four weeks, while KP.2 was the second-most common, Lin said. Cases with the LB.1 subvariant