Following new developments in a duty-free cigarette smuggling scandal, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday said that it is time to root out illicit practices that have long been a part of the nation’s bureaucracy, while the Presidential Office said that a preliminary investigation has produced no evidence of wrongdoing by mid to high-level officials.
Tsai said that she has entrusted the judiciary and new National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正) to investigate the case, and demanded that mismanagement and disciplinary problems found at China Airlines (中華航空), the Airport Police Bureau and national security agencies be corrected.
“We will respect the results of the investigation and all infractions found must be rectified,” Tsai said.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
“We have to face these illicit practices that have accumulated within the bureaucracy for many years,” she said. “Now that they have been exposed, they must be fixed.”
Presidential Office spokesman Alex Huang (黃重諺) told a media briefing that five trucks dispatched to transport items from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport were controlled by NSB units.
“Two of the trucks were borrowed from the Presidential Office by the NSB’s presidential security units. They contained no illegal items, only luggage and transport equipment,” Huang said. “The large cache of cigarette cartons was transported on the three other trucks.”
A preliminary investigation found no involvement by mid to high-level officials at the Presidential Office or the National Security Council, he said, but added that “disciplinary measures are being assessed for the presidential security units implicated in the case.”
“An internal investigation has found that presidential security units under the NSB made large purchases of foreign duty-free goods to take advantage of the president’s overseas state visits,” Huang said.
The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office, in coordination with the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau, yesterday searched five China Airlines offices, including those of its subsidiary, China Pacific Catering Services (華膳空廚), and its in-flight service supply division, corporate communications office, and cargo services and logistics division.
The raids began in the morning and ended at about 7pm, with investigators taking several cartons of materials.
Prosecutors also summoned for questioning NSB officers Wu Tsung-hsien (吳宗憲) and Chang Heng-chia (張恒嘉), who have been held with restricted communications.
On Thursday, prosecutors had searched their rooms at an NSB dormitory at the president’s residence.
Prosecutors yesterday also responded to a report by the China Times, saying that they did not enter the president’s official residence and that prior notice was given to Presidential Office staff.
Meanwhile, China Airlines handed out a first wave of punishments, demoting senior vice president Lo Ya-mei (羅雅美) to special assistant to the chairman and chartered flight division vice president Chiu Chang-hsin (邱彰信) to coordinator at the office of the airline’s president.
Lo and Chiu were responsible for arranging the chartered flights for Tsai’s visit to the nation’s four Caribbean allies, as well as previous trips in March and August last year to allies in the South Pacific and Latin America respectively.
The demotions are to take effect on Thursday next week, the airline said.
Additional reporting by Cheng Wei-chi
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
RSS