National Security Bureau (NSB) officials used five trucks dispatched by the Presidential Office in a bid to smuggle 9,800 cartons of cigarettes into the nation on Monday, New Power Party (NPP) Legislator Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) said yesterday.
Huang on Monday alleged that NSB official Wu Tsung-hsien (吳宗憲) ordered 9,200 cartons of cigarettes costing more than US$200,000 through China Airlines’ (CAL) online duty-free store before accompanying President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on a state visit to the Caribbean.
The Customs Administration confirmed that on Monday, the day Tsai returned to Taiwan from her trip, it intercepted five trucks loaded with 9,800 cartons of cigarettes which were following Tai’s motorcade from the airport.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
Huang said when he asked the Presidential Office who sent the trucks, the office refused to provide any information, saying it could not reveal any details while a judicial investigation is ongoing.
“This is not the first time a branch of the executive has refused to answer questions from the legislative body using that excuse and I am sure it will not be the last,” Huang said.
Presidential Office spokesman Ting Yun-kung (丁允恭) later yesterday confirmed that the office was responsible for dispatching vehicles to pick up Tsai, other officials and NSB agents.
Since the case is under investigation, information relating to who approved the trucks cannot be made public, he added.
The officials involved in the case are mainly NSB employees based at the Presidential Office, Huang said.
NSB officials can be assigned to posts in the Presidential Office and receive their salaries from the Presidential Office’s budget, but they still follow instructions from the NSB, he said.
To find out if bureau employees have previously smuggled goods, investigators should immediately seize CAL’s order records, he said.
“It is ridiculous that even though the president ordered a thorough investigation, and everyone knows that CAL has the key evidence, investigators still have not done anything to preserve the evidence,” Huang said.
While Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) has vowed to thoroughly investigate the matter, “the public need to see action, not slogans,” Huang said.
The ministry should form a task force to investigate CAL and require the company to provide all related administrative records, he said.
The Customs Administration should impose a fine of between NT$3,000 and NT$60,000 (US$96.51 and US$1,930.25) on CAL subsidiary China Pacific Catering Services Ltd (華膳空廚) — which allegedly hid the cigarettes before they were loaded onto the trucks — for breaching warehouse management regulations, Huang said.
Deputy Minister of Transportation and Communications Wang Kwo-tsai (王國材) yesterday visited CAL headquarters on behalf of the airline’s largest shareholder, the China Aviation Development Foundation, to monitor the progress of the company’s investigation into the incident.
“We hope that the airline will quickly and thoroughly investigate the incident, and disclose the results to the public,” Wang said.
The foundation holds a 34.45 percent stake in the airline.
Wang was reportedly sent by Lin because the minister was “extremely displeased” that the airline as of yesterday had not yet submitted a report about its investigation.
In related news, Veterans Affairs Council Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正) has been named NSB director-general after his predecessor, Peng Sheng-chu (彭勝竹), resigned on Monday over the scandal.
Chiu, 66, previously served as deputy defense minister, among other posts.
He retired from the military in April 2017 and became veteran affairs minister in February last year.
Additional reporting by Shelley Shan and CNA
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
CHINA REACTS: The patrol and reconnaissance plane ‘transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,’ the 7th Fleet said, while Taipei said it saw nothing unusual The US 7th Fleet yesterday said that a US Navy P-8A Poseidon flew through the Taiwan Strait, a day after US and Chinese defense heads held their first talks since November 2022 in an effort to reduce regional tensions. The patrol and reconnaissance plane “transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,” the 7th Fleet said in a news release. “By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations.” In a separate statement, the Ministry of National Defense said that it monitored nearby waters and airspace as the aircraft
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