The Changhua District Prosecutors’ Office has detained seven people for their alleged involvement in green energy-related corruption cases.
The suspects were local officials from township offices and township representative offices in Changhua County’s Chutang Township (竹塘) and Yunlin County’s Erlun Township (二崙), as well as facilitators, the prosecutors said, adding that they were being detained to prevent them from contacting co-conspirators.
The action was taken on Tuesday by the office together with the Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau and Agency Against Corruption.
Photo: Chen Kuan-bei, Taipei Times
Forty-eight locations were raided and NT$7.27 million (US$227,358) in cash was seized, the office said on Wednesday.
After questioning 41 people, prosecutors detained seven, while the others were released on bail ranging from NT$100,000 to NT$1.2 million.
The case was the third in a series of crackdowns on green energy-related corruption launched by the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office, the office said.
The office said that NT$12.29 million has been seized from the crackdowns, and three township heads, three township representatives, four facilitators and one civil servant have been indicted in the cases.
The first investigation identified a former township head who is believed to have solicited bribes from a green energy provider and a former legislative office worker accused of accepting bribes from a solar energy provider.
Meanwhile, the second investigation found that Yunlin County Council Speaker Huang Kai (黃凱) allegedly accepted bribes and helped a solar energy provider, and a Chiayi County township construction department head was accused of asking for bribes from a green energy provider, the office added.
ACCESS DENIAL: Beijing would likely take formation in the Philippine Sea, outside Taipei’s missile range, while its forces on the east would be a deterrent to foreign aid China is increasingly likely to employ a strategy of anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) around Taiwan, which would use three carrier groups, a report from the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said. When China’s third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, is completed next year, China would have three carriers, which would likely be used to surround Taiwan and implement an A2/AD strategy, it said, adding that efforts to strengthen China’s two other carriers — the Liaoning and the Shandong — appear to corroborate this. In the quarterly report, the council cited declassified documents from the Ministry of National Defense that categorized China’s carriers as
Two German warships are awaiting orders from Berlin to determine whether they would be the first German naval vessels in decades to pass through the Taiwan Strait next month, at the risk of stoking tensions with Beijing, a German commander said. While the US and other nations, including Canada, have sent warships through the narrow strait in recent weeks, it would be the German navy’s first passage through the Strait since 2002. China claims sovereignty over Taiwan, and says it has jurisdiction over the nearly 180km waterway that divides the two sides. Taiwan strongly objects to these claims, saying only its people
Former US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley yesterday called for more international backing for Taiwan and a coordinated pushback against China’s claims over the nation. “The United States should elevate Taiwan on the world stage. You should no longer be silenced in global affairs,” Haley told an audience at the Ketagalan Forum, a Taipei conference focused on security issues in the Asia-Pacific region. She called for Taiwan to become a full member of the UN, even though it is being blocked by China from representation in international bodies. While the US does not formally recognize Taiwan, it is the nation's strongest
INCH BY INCH: Beijing has adopted a ‘salami slicing’ strategy to gradually erode the sovereignty of the Republic of China in the Taiwan Strait, an expert said A Chinese patrol and law enforcement operation in the Taiwan Strait could indirectly expand Beijing’s jurisdiction to the median line of the Strait in an attempt to eliminate jurisdictional gaps, Taiwanese experts said. The operation, jointly launched by the Chinese Ministry of Transport’s Fujian Maritime Safety Administration and its East China Sea Rescue Bureau, was conducted from Saturday to Sunday, after China’s three-and-a-half-month fishing moratorium concluded on Friday last week, China’s state-run Xinhua news agency reported. The operation — which Beijing said is designed to “enhance traffic management and emergency rescue capabilities in the Strait to ensure the safety of vessels, facilities