Wei Ying-chung (魏應充), the former chairman of Ting Hsin Oil and Fat Industrial Co (頂新製油實業) and Wei Chuan Foods Corp (味全食品) who was found guilty of fraud in a tainted oil scandal exposed in 2013, yesterday began to serve his two-year prison term.
“Since this is God’s way of testing me, I will face it calmly... We should all walk away from hatred, antagonism and rumor-mongering. I want to thank all my friends and family, as well as employees, for their support throughout the trial and for believing in my innocence. Thank you,” Wei said as he reported to the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office in the morning for transfer to Taipei Prison.
“Wei’s sentence is a warning issued by the justice system, but it is not the realization of justice,” Wei’s lawyer Yu Ming-hsien (余明賢) said.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
Wei is the third of four brothers who own Changhua County-based Ting Hsin International Group (頂新集團), which operates numerous food brands, including Master Kong (康師傅) instant noodles, Wei Chuan Foods and Dicos (德克士).
He took charge of the group’s cooking oil business and Wei Chuan in Taiwan before the scandal.
In late 2013, Ting Hsin Oil and Fat was found to have used tainted oil obtained from Chang Chi Foodstuff Co (大統長基) in its products since 2007.
Chang Chi mixed cottonseed oil and other cheap oils into its more expensive grape-seed and olive oil products, and in some cases added copper complex chlorophyllin, a colorant used to make the substitutes look more like olive oil.
In 2014, Ting Hsin Oil and Fat, along with Cheng I Food Co (正義油品), another firm previously headed by Wei, were found to have used gutter oil and imported oil meant for animal feed in its lard-based cooking oil products.
The oils were also used by Wei Chuan in its food products.
On Oct. 21, 2014, prosecutors indicted Wei, former Ting Hsin Oil and Fat president Chang Mei-feng (常梅峰) and former Wei Chuan president Chang Chiao-hua (張教華), along with several others, on charges of fraud, forgery and violations of food regulations.
Prosecutors said that Wei, in a bid to cut production costs, changed the formulas of the company’s 14 blended oil products, including one that used 98 percent cheap palm oil and only 1 percent or 2 percent olive or grape-seed oil, but marketed it as a premium class of blended oil.
Wei was originally sentenced to four years in prison by the Taipei District Court in a first trial in March last year, during which Chang was acquitted and the others were given prison terms ranging from five months to 46 months.
After an appeal by Wei, the Intellectual Property Court reduced his sentence to two years in a second trial in April last year.
The ruling is final and cannot be appealed, because prosecutors charged Wei and the other defendants with fraudulent labeling of products.
As a result, the case fell under the jurisdiction of the Intellectual Property Court, which found Wei and the other defendants not guilty of knowingly using adulterated oil obtained from Chang Chi.
There was insufficient evidence to show that Wei and the other defendants had knowledge of or could have reasonably foreseen the use of tainted oil, the Intellectual Property Court said.
As for Wei’s sale of substandard lard-based cooking oil, the Changhua District Court handed down a not-guilty ruling in November 2015. The prosecution has appealed that ruling.
Wei in 2014 resigned from his posts as chairman of Wei Chuan, Cheng I and Ting Hsin Oil and Fat.
Additional reporting by Jason Pan
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