The Taiwan High Court yesterday upheld a guilty verdict for two people over the imprisonment and subsequent deaths of three people targeted in a fraud scheme.
The two had their life sentences upheld.
Eleven named accomplices received jail sentences ranging from five years to 25 years and six months.
Photo: Yang Kuo-wen, Taipei Times
The verdict is not final.
Fu Yu-lin (傅榆藺) and Chen Hua-wei (陳樺韋) were accused of being the masterminds behind a scam group that lured people with fake job offers before abducting and torturing them to gain control of their bank accounts.
The accounts were used in schemes that defrauded 267 people of almost NT$400 million (US$12.18 million), court records from an earlier trial said.
A man surnamed Huang (黃), aged 38, a woman also surnamed Huang, aged 45, and a man surnamed Lin (林), aged 57, died from abuse in captivity, the verdict said.
Their bodies were abandoned in mountainous areas in Taoyuan and Nantou County, Chinese-language media reported.
In 2022, a police investigation into a missing persons report exposed the group’s activities and resulted in its members being detained.
The Shilin District Court last year convicted 29 people in connection with the case, sentencing three people accused of masterminding the plot to life in prison.
The defendants appealed the verdict at the Taiwan High Court, which — citing a need to maintain judicial efficiency — separated them into two groups for retrial due to the large amount of evidence and number of people involved.
Yesterday’s proceedings involving 13 defendants largely upheld the lower court’s verdict, with the judges saying the greed of the accused had caused three deaths and inflicted grievous harm to others.
Tu Cheng-che (杜承哲), a third leader of the crime group, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in a separate trial of 16 other defendants earlier last month.
Three other accomplices in Tu’s trial were also sentenced to life in prison.
In separate news, the Ciaotao District Prosecutors’ Office said that it has indicted two university professors identified by their surnames, Wang (王) and Tang (唐), for corruption in an alleged cash for grades scheme.
The professors who taught at an unnamed Kaohsiung-based national university of science and technology are believed to have accepted bribes ranging from NT$100,000 to NT$400,000 from six students in exchange for better grades and help with their theses, the office said in a news release.
The Ciaotao District Court rejected a request by the prosecutors’ office to remand the professors and a student surnamed Cheng (鄭), saying that they posed little flight risk due to their limited financial means and because the professors had confessed.
Wang, Tang and Cheng were released on bail of NT$200,000, NT$100,000 and NT$50,000 respectively, while five other students were released on bail of NT$100,000 each.
SCENARIOS: A potential conflict with Beijing would not be similar to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and China would target energy and food supplies, a researcher said China is likely to continue using economic and cyberoperations against Taiwan to force it to capitulate without resorting to a military attack, Fox News reported yesterday, citing the outcome of a tabletop exercise. Washington-based think tank the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) earlier this month held a tabletop exercise in Taipei focusing on Beijing’s use of economic and cybercoercion against Taiwan. The FDD mentioned an “anaconda strategy,” in which Beijing would likely use cyberwarfare and disinformation campaigns followed by a blockade or other measures to strangulate Taiwan, rather than attempting an invasion, the report said. A large-scale cyberattack would be
HSINCHU CASES: Five people among 35 who were reported being sick were still in hospital after eating at a vendor in a market in Jhubei, the local health agency said Thirty-five people have sought medical treatment for acute symptoms after allegedly eating banh mi (Vietnamese sandwiches) from a vendor in Jhubei City (竹北), the Hsinchu County Public Health Bureau said yesterday. The bureau said that since Saturday, it has received several reports of suspected food poisoning from hospitals. The vendor has been ordered to temporarily suspend its business, it said, adding that tests were being conducted to determine whether the people had food poisoning, with results expected in about two weeks. A preliminary investigation showed that the people who sought treatment had recently eaten banh mi at a vendor at a retail market
GOOD MODEL: Speaking at his book launch, Law said that Taiwan is the most democratic Chinese-speaking country, which is why Hong Kongers relocated here China has suffocated Hong Kong’s civil society and its next target could be Taiwan, Nathan Law (羅冠聰), cofounder of the disbanded pro-democracy Hong Kong political party Demosisto, said in Taipei yesterday. Law made the remarks at a launch in Taipei for his book When the Wind Blows — the Struggles for Freedom of Hong Kong (時代推著我們前行:羅冠聰的香港備忘錄). Law has been living in the UK since he fled Hong Kong in 2020, and the book is about his fighting for the cause of freedom in the area. He was granted political asylum in 2021. “Fleeing is a long and distressing process, but it also
IMITATING OTHERS? Tsai Ing-wen’s office said the former president rents a commercial unit for her personal office and had never used election funds to purchase real estate Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday confirmed that he used about NT$43 million (US$1.35 million) from his presidential election subsidy to purchase an office unit near the Legislative Yuan in May. Ko made the remarks after Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City Councilor Lin Yen-feng (林延鳳) earlier in the day told a news conference that she received a tip-off that the TPP chairman had purchased a 48.76 ping (161.2m2) office unit at Jinan Building (濟南大樓), a commercial building in Taipei’s Zhongzheng District (中正). Lin said that Ko purchased the unit on May 10, paying about NT$43 million in cash,