The Taipei District Court on Monday found seven people guilty of helping a convicted funeral business tycoon flee Taiwan after he jumped bail of NT$517 million (US$16.20 million) while awaiting a Supreme Court verdict in September last year.
Global Funeral Service Corp president Chu Guo-rong (朱國榮) had been out on bail after having appealed his conviction to the Supreme Court. He was sentenced to eight years in prison for stock speculation in 2018 and 16 years in 2019 for insider trading and other contraventions of the Securities and Exchange Act (證券交易法), High Court rulings said.
Chu was required to report in person to the Sanzhangli Police Station in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) every day before 7pm.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
He last reported to the station on Sept. 7 last year and was listed as a wanted fugitive on Sept. 28.
The seven convicted were among 10 people indicted by the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office in May.
The mother and brother of Chen Wan-hsuan (陳宛瑄), Chu’s girlfriend; and Chu’s secretary, surnamed Tseng (曾), were found not guilty, the ruling said.
George Chou (周哲男), who runs a yacht charter business and purchased a yacht for Chu, was sentenced to 14 months in prison for crimes under the Immigration Act (入出國及移民法).
Chou was found to have driven the tycoon on Sept. 7 last year to Tainan, where Chu boarded the yacht that Chou had purchased and sailed to the Philippines.
The captain of the yacht, Chung Ming-hua (鍾明華), who took Chu to the Philippines, was sentenced to one year in prison, while his two sons, who were crew members on the yacht, each received 10 months, the ruling said.
The district court also handed down a 10-month prison sentence to Chen’s father, who pretended to be Chu when applying for a Vanuatu passport in Hong Kong, the ruling said.
Diamond dealer Lin Yu-fen (林郁芬) and her American husband, Benjamin Michael Schwall, were both sentenced to six months in prison or a fine for helping arrange air tickets for Chu and his girlfriend to fly to Israel and then Moscow.
Chu’s whereabouts remain unknown.
The verdicts can be appealed.
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