Police yesterday arrested four suspects in connection to a NT$12 million (US$369,068) fraud case that allegedly led to the suicides of a mother and daughter.
A total of 10 suspects are linked to the case, with four apprehended yesterday, five already detained or in prison for other cases and one believed to be on the run, police said.
The mother and daughter surnamed Ning (甯) from Taipei’s Neihu District (内湖) reportedly took their own lives on Sunday.
Photo copied by Cheng Ching-i, Taipei Times
Their suicide note reportedly said they had been defrauded of NT$12 million between July and October, and had reported the case to police on Wednesday last week.
Taipei police said they received a report at 1pm on Monday from a man surnamed Tseng (曾), who had returned home to find his 55-year-old mother and 29-year-old sister had taken their own lives.
The two had joined an investment group on Line after finding an advertisement on Facebook posted by fraudsters posing as the Internet-famous financial investment mentors “ZRBros” (柴鼠兄弟), police said.
Police arrested two alleged money mules in connection to the case yesterday morning — a woman surnamed Huang (黃), 20, was apprehended in Taoyuan and a man surnamed Yang (楊), 35, was seized in New Taipei City’s Sijhih District (汐止), reports showed.
Huang had already been charged with fraud, forgery and money laundering after an investigation revealed she had received a transfer of NT$400,000 from the mother and daughter in August, while Yang received NT$200,000 in July, investigators said.
Huang and Yang told police they were “just following orders” and received a 5 percent commission, but did not know their actions had led to the suicides, they said.
Bail has been set for Yang at NT$50,000 under condition of house arrest, while prosecutors applied to the court to detain Huang incommunicado, which was approved by the Shilin District Court late last night, media reported.
Yesterday evening, police also apprehended a male suspect surnamed Hsieh (謝), 18, in Hsinchu, who allegedly received NT$500,000, and another man surnamed Wang (王), 24, in Kaohsiung for allegedly receiving NT$1 million, they said.
Both are to be transferred to the Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office today, police said.
Investigators reportedly found 15 bank accounts in connection to the mother and daughter, but the accounts had been emptied in the two months before they reported the scam.
Additionally, a Taipei police officer is being investigated on suspicion of inappropriate and unsympathetic language when handling the case, the Neihu Precinct said in a news release yesterday afternoon.
The responding officer at Gangqian Police Station, surnamed Liu (劉), has been issued a major demerit and reassigned, while the case has been transferred to the Disciplinary Court for investigation, it said.
It has also been transferred to the Shillin District Prosecutors’ Office to determine potential criminal liability, it added.
However, the precinct said that Liu had not said the particularly heinous remarks reported by the media, which have claimed that a frustrated Liu said “why don’t you just kill yourself” when the Nings failed to pick up multiple calls, which was overheard by the younger Ning.
The two women in their suicide note reportedly mentioned the officer’s inappropriate conduct.
Taipei Police Department Commissioner Lee Hsi-ho (李西河) expressed his deepest condolences and vowed that the precinct would do its utmost to support the family in making arrangements following the deaths and take appropriate disciplinary action.
Lee said he hopes to reform policy, using the incident as an example when training new recruits and tightening supervision of officer conduct.
Additional reporting by CNA
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