Tainan County Council Speaker Wu Chien-bao (吳健保) and Councilor Lee Chuan-fu (李全富), both Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) members, were accused yesterday of illegally quarrying sand from the Tsengwen River and earning more than NT$1 billion for selling the sand to construction companies.
Tainan District Prosecutors' Office Spokesman Fan Wen-hao (范文豪) said Wu was summoned by prosecutors for questioning and that they asked the court last night to detain him. As of press time last night, the detention order had not been granted.
Prosecutors have not been able to locate Lee. His older brother, KMT Legislator Lee Chuan-chiao (李全教), yesterday called for his sibling to meet with investigators.
Prosecutors said Wu ran the Tainan-based Fu-hsin Co, which won a public bid in March last year to dredge the channel of the Tsengwen River.
Prosecutors said Lee Chuan-fu had cooperated with Wu on the sand business.
They said the contract called for the company to quarry silt from the river and deepen its channel to 4m. However, they said, the company deepened the channel to 13m, and sold the dredged sand to construction companies while partially filling the channel with earth from the riverbank.
Prosecutors said quarrying had severely damaged the environment and endangered bridges across the river.
The investigation into Wu and Lee Chuan-fu began after Lee was reportedly kidnapped by fugitive Chang His-ming (張錫銘) last month. Fu-hsin Co paid a NT$30 million ransom for Lee. Investigators wondered why Wu and his firm were willing to pay the ransom.
Prosecutors believe Chang kidnapped Lee because he wanted some of the money the county councillor had reportedly made from the sand sales. Chang is on the most-wanted list for his alleged involvement in several kidnapping cases.
Tainan prosecutors led raids on Thursday of the Tainan Bureau of the Water Resources Agency (WRA), the residences of Wu and Lee Chuan-fu, and the dredging site.
Prosecutors said Wu had been tipped off about the raids in advance and so they didn't find him at his home or office on Thursday.
He was picked up last night after police found him in his car near his home.
Investigators are also probing whether Wu bribed a WRA official at the Tainan bureau to win the dredging bid for NT$50 million. Prosecutors said they are also investigating some WRA employees.
Prosecutors have summoned more than 80 people for questioning in the case, including Fu-hsin employees and construction workers.
MORE VISITORS: The Tourism Administration said that it is seeing positive prospects in its efforts to expand the tourism market in North America and Europe Taiwan has been ranked as the cheapest place in the world to travel to this year, based on a list recommended by NerdWallet. The San Francisco-based personal finance company said that Taiwan topped the list of 16 nations it chose for budget travelers because US tourists do not need visas and travelers can easily have a good meal for less than US$10. A bus ride in Taipei costs just under US$0.50, while subway rides start at US$0.60, the firm said, adding that public transportation in Taiwan is easy to navigate. The firm also called Taiwan a “food lover’s paradise,” citing inexpensive breakfast stalls
US PUBLICATION: The results indicated a change in attitude after a 2023 survey showed 55 percent supported full-scale war to achieve unification, the report said More than half of Chinese were against the use of force to unify with Taiwan under any circumstances, a survey conducted by the Atlanta, Georgia-based Carter Center and Emory University found. The survey results, which were released on Wednesday in a report titled “Sovereignty, Security, & US-China Relations: Chinese Public Opinion,” showed that 55.1 percent of respondents agreed or somewhat agreed that “the Taiwan problem should not be resolved using force under any circumstances,” while 24.5 percent “strongly” or “somewhat” disagreed with the statement. The results indicated a change in attitude after a survey published in “Assessing Public Support for (Non)Peaceful Unification
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
Four former Hong Kong opposition lawmakers jailed in the territory’s largest national security case were released yesterday after more than four years in prison, the first among dozens convicted last year to regain their freedom. Former legislators Claudia Mo (毛孟靜), Jeremy Tam (譚文豪), Kwok Ka-ki (郭家麒) and Gary Fan (范國威) were part of a group of 47 public figures — including some of Hong Kong’s best-known democracy advocates — who were charged with subversion in 2021 for holding an informal primary election. The case fell under a National Security Law imposed on the territory by Beijng, and drew international condemnation and warnings
RSS