A request to detain nine out of 11 people arrested in connection with the alleged counterfeiting of US dollars has been granted, the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said yesterday.
The eight men and one woman were arrested after Mega International Commercial Bank (兆豐國際商銀) turned over suspicious bills to investigators, who found the currency to be counterfeit.
The suspects have refused to reveal the name of the counterfeit ring’s mastermind or say whether a US dollar forgery production plant exists since being arrested at the end of last month, leading prosecutors to request their detention.
“We are still trying to track down the architect of the counterfeit money ring,” one prosecutor said.
The group early last month successfully exchanged US$2 million in forged World War II-era US$100 bills.
The forged banknotes avoided detection by bank clerks and fooled counterfeit money detectors, the Chinese-language United Daily News reported.
It was the first time a Taiwanese financial institution had been swindled out of a large sum of money through the use of counterfeit US dollar banknotes, the report said.
Banks are required to double-check with local authorities and the US when presented with old US dollar notes, but Mega Bank did not, the report said.
Investigators found that the suspects first exchanged small amounts of the counterfeit banknotes to make sure that banks did not detect the forgeries, before exchanging larger sums.
The money was evenly exchanged at two of Mega Bank’s branches in Taipei and then deposited into dummy bank accounts at other banks.
All of the money has been withdrawn and investigators suspect that some of the money has already been laundered and sent abroad.
Separately, Financial Supervisory Commission Chairperson Jennifer Wang (王儷玲) yesterday told lawmakers that a task force would be established to help banks improve their ability to detect counterfeit currency.
An Emirates flight from Dubai arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport yesterday afternoon, the first service of the airline since the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran on Saturday. Flight EK366 took off from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at 3:51am yesterday and landed at 4:02pm before taxiing to the airport’s D6 gate at Terminal 2 at 4:08pm, data from the airport and FlightAware, a global flight tracking site, showed. Of the 501 passengers on the flight, 275 were Taiwanese, including 96 group tour travelers, the data showed. Tourism Administration Deputy Director-General Huang He-ting (黃荷婷) greeted Taiwanese passengers at the airport and
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
STRAIT OF HORMUZ: In the case of a prolonged blockade by Iran, Taiwan would look to sources of LNG outside the Middle East, including Australia and the US Taiwan would not have to ration power due to a shortage of natural gas, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday, after reports that the Strait of Hormuz was closed amid the conflict in the Middle East. The government has secured liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies for this month and contingency measures are in place if the conflict extends into next month, Kung told lawmakers. Saying that 25 percent of Taiwan’s natural gas supplies are from Qatar, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) asked about the situation in light of the conflict. There would be “no problems” with
RSS