Taipei prosecutors raided Yuanta Securities Corp (元大證券) yesterday afternoon and detained several high-ranking officials of the nation’s largest brokerage firm for questioning over suspected trading irregularities, a company official said.
“Prosecutors have searched our headquarters and several other places in line with its investigation into a structured note trading back in 2005,” Chuang Yu-teh (莊有德), spokesperson for Yuanta Securities, told local cable channel USTV last night in a telephone interview.
A Central News Agency report said that prosecutors and investigators simultaneously searched 11 locations yesterday afternoon, including Yuanta Securities’ headquarters in Taipei.
It said prosecutors also searched the residences of several of the brokerage’s top management, including Yuanta Securities chairwoman Judy Tu (杜麗莊), president Lee Chang (張立秋) and bond department assistant manager Wu Li-min (吳麗敏).
Eight company officials, including Tu, Chang and Wu, were summoned by prosecutors for questioning, Chuang said.
The questioning was still ongoing as of press time.
The Financial Supervisory Commission started investigating last year suspected irregularities involving the sale of shares of Yuanta Investment Trust Co (元大投信) to Yuanta Securities in 2005, after the former suffered substantial losses from its investment in interest rate-linked structured notes following a series of interest rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve, the report said.
Prosecutors alleged that with the share sale, Tu reaped large profits through interest arbitrage while leaving Yuanta Securities to suffer from absorbing part of its investment affiliates’ losses and damaging the interests of its shareholders.
Chuang yesterday denied that the company did anything wrong in the deal, saying the company followed the financial regulator’s instructions in dealing with the structured note investment.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique