Former Control Yuan member and current Kaohsiung City councilor Chu An-hsiung (
The charges were the result of an investigation started after the December 1998 legislative and municipal elections.
The Chu family is one of Kao-hsiung's so-called "three big clans" (
PHOTO: CHANG CHUNG-YI, LIBERTY TIMES
Chu An-hsiung currently heads the Feng An Metal Company (
Prosecutors allege that in order to allow the company to be listed on the stock market, he set up three dummy companies in other people's names in 1991, and used these three companies as instruments to "buy" goods from Feng An. With the forged transaction records, Chu's business volume could meet the standards for being listed on the local bourse.
With the spare invoices for the false transactions of the three dummy companies, Feng An then allegedly sold these invoices to companies which intended to avoid paying taxes, or produced these invoices to buying parties when selling goods.
The money from this enterprise was also deposited in dummy accounts, according to the indictment.
In addition, the prosecutors said, in 1997 another of Chu's companies, Chen An Steel (
The Chu brothers are also charged with purchasing invoices from another nine dummy companies in order to evade taxes. The indictment says that Feng An, Chen An and An Feng Steel (安鋒鋼鐵) have, in total evaded some NT$58.3 million in business taxes and NT$291.6 million in income taxes.
The Chu brothers, however, denied all the charges stemming from the investigation, saying that their employees were responsible for the whole thing.
Since the offences occurred serially, the prosecution has asked the court for harsher sentences if the pair are convicted.
Prosecutors launched an investigation into the case following revelations from a New Party candidate in the 1998 elections for Kaohsiung mayor and city council, that alleged illegal dealings by Chu.
Chu An-hsiung's wife Wu Der-mei is the board chairman of Feng An. She has already been prosecuted by the Taichung's prosecutors' office for two related cases of establishing dummy companies and selling invoices, according to the prosecutors.
Both An Feng Steel and Chu An Steel were involved in repeated multi-million dollar check default scandals in the summer of 1998 which plunged the Pan Asia Bank (
DAREDEVIL: Honnold said it had always been a dream of his to climb Taipei 101, while a Netflix producer said the skyscraper was ‘a real icon of this country’ US climber Alex Honnold yesterday took on Taiwan’s tallest building, becoming the first person to scale Taipei 101 without a rope, harness or safety net. Hundreds of spectators gathered at the base of the 101-story skyscraper to watch Honnold, 40, embark on his daredevil feat, which was also broadcast live on Netflix. Dressed in a red T-shirt and yellow custom-made climbing shoes, Honnold swiftly moved up the southeast face of the glass and steel building. At one point, he stepped onto a platform midway up to wave down at fans and onlookers who were taking photos. People watching from inside
A Vietnamese migrant worker yesterday won NT$12 million (US$379,627) on a Lunar New Year scratch card in Kaohsiung as part of Taiwan Lottery Co’s (台灣彩券) “NT$12 Million Grand Fortune” (1200萬大吉利) game. The man was the first top-prize winner of the new game launched on Jan. 6 to mark the Lunar New Year. Three Vietnamese migrant workers visited a Taiwan Lottery shop on Xinyue Street in Kaohsiung’s Gangshan District (崗山), a store representative said. The player bought multiple tickets and, after winning nothing, held the final lottery ticket in one hand and rubbed the store’s statue of the Maitreya Buddha’s belly with the other,
‘NATO-PLUS’: ‘Our strategic partners in the Indo-Pacific are facing increasing aggression by the Chinese Communist Party,’ US Representative Rob Wittman said The US House of Representatives on Monday released its version of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, which includes US$1.15 billion to support security cooperation with Taiwan. The omnibus act, covering US$1.2 trillion of spending, allocates US$1 billion for the Taiwan Security Cooperation Initiative, as well as US$150 million for the replacement of defense articles and reimbursement of defense services provided to Taiwan. The fund allocations were based on the US National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2026 that was passed by the US Congress last month and authorized up to US$1 billion to the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency in support of the
‘COMMITTED TO DETERRENCE’: Washington would stand by its allies, but it can only help as much as countries help themselves, Raymond Greene said The US is committed to deterrence in the first island chain, but it should not bear the burden alone, as “freedom is not free,” American Institute in Taiwan Director Raymond Greene said in a speech at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research’s “Strengthening Resilience: Defense as the Engine of Development” seminar in Taipei yesterday. In the speech, titled “Investing Together and a Secure and Prosperous Future,” Greene highlighted the contributions of US President Donald Trump’s administration to Taiwan’s defense efforts, including the establishment of supply chains for drones and autonomous systems, offers of security assistance and the expansion of
RSS