US helping Taiwan find Rebar fugitives

China finally responded to their calls yesterday, defending itself for failing to detain the couple.

"The accusation in Taiwan that [China] has not helped to repatriate Wang is groundless," Yang Yi (楊毅), spokesman for China's Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO), told a news conference in Beijing.

Yang said that he did not know exactly when Wang had arrived in Shanghai or when he had left China.

"According to Taiwan media reports, Wang left the mainland before the arrest warrant was issued. Then is there a repatriation question here?" Yang asked, adding that Wang had legitimate travel documents to enter and exit China.

Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) asked China on Sunday to return Wang to Taiwan via a third country. Taiwanese prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for him on Monday.

Taiwanese officials gave China's comments short shrift.

"Wang was not put on the wanted list or a fugitive, so [China] could not deport him? I think that is merely an excuse -- and a lousy one," Cabinet Spokesman Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦) said.

Cheng made his remarks yesterday morning in response to the TAO statement.

Cheng said that Wang's placement on the most-wanted list had nothing to do with Taiwan's request that China send him back.

Unhelpful

The Chinese government had not helped, he said, because Wang took a lot of money to China and was planning to invest it there.

"Regarding Taiwanese white-collar criminals, whether the Chinese government ignores our requests to detain them and ship them back, I think this issue can be further discussed," Cheng said.

The spokesman asked the Chinese government to acknowledge its duty. He said many Taiwanese white-collar criminals had left their debts in Taiwan and taken their money to China in recent decades, but the Chinese government had done nothing about it.

Meanwhile, speculation was rife that the Wangs might decide to go to Alhambra, California, a heavily ethnic Chinese suburb of Los Angeles.

Alhambra is where the family's Omni Bank (安利銀行) is headquartered. All of the Wang children have worked at the bank, which also has branches in nearby Monterey Park and San Jose.

"The Rebar Group has a bank in Los Angeles, and maybe over 100 business investments in Taiwan, China, the US and Asia," one MOFA official said.

Officials could not confirm recent Chinese-language media reports that Chin recently bought a house in the San Francisco area.

Arrests

Wang 's son Wang Lin-i (王令一) and brother Frank Wang (王事展), both managers of Rebar Group member companies, were arrested in Taiwan last Thursday. The two brothers and their father have been charged with violating the Securities and Exchange Law, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors have barred 48 Rebar Group managers and Wang family members from traveling abroad.

Meanwhile, spokesman Lin Jinn-tsun said prosecutors yesterday interviewed 12 accountants from companies of Rebar Group, and also seized a number of accounting books from the companies.

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