Police raids in several cities have closed down a major international gambling syndicate, the largest-known underground bank for remittances between Taiwan and China, and the focus of an ongoing investigation into wagers on the Jan. 11 presidential election.
Investigators said that they on Wednesday detained the suspected backer and proprietor of the syndicate, a 50-year-old man surnamed Hsiao (蕭), who has extensive business and real-estate holdings in Chiayi County and central Taiwan, along with Hsiao’s suspected business partner, a man surnamed Lai (賴), who is in his 40s.
Hsiao, who remains in custody, was subpoenaed along with more than 100 people, including syndicate members, witnesses and regular betting customers, police said, adding that Lai fled to the Philippines, where the syndicate had also established a betting office.
Photo courtesy of the Chiayi District Prosecutors’ Office via CNA
The Chiayi District Prosecutors’ Office, which is coordinating the probe, conducted the raids, gathering evidence and serving subpoenas, with law enforcement units in 72 localities — including Taipei, Chiayi, Taoyuan, Taichung and Kaohsiung.
The case is related to another Chiayi-based underground bank, led by a man surnamed Wu (吳), which in the year prior to an August raid conducted NT$8 billion (US$264.9 million) in money transfers and remittances between Taiwan and China, Chiayi head prosecutor Tsai Ying-chun (蔡英俊) said.
Hsiao was allegedly the “big boss” of Wu’s operation, Tsai said, adding that Hsiao’s syndicate and an affiliated underground bank transferred NT$13.9 billion, mostly from China to Taiwan.
As of yesterday, Chiayi prosecutors had listed Hsiao, Lai and 20 other people as suspects who could be charged with breaches of the Banking Act (銀行法) and the Money Laundering Control Act (洗錢防制法), as well as illegal gambling offenses under the Criminal Code.
The probe is shifting its focus to Hsiao’s China money connection and an election gambling pool that allegedly provides financial and political support from China for Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential candidate, Tsai said.
According to a man surnamed Shih (施), who said that he bet on the outcome of the presidential election, the gambling pools favor President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) with a “point spread” — meaning she would lead by that number of votes — of more than 700,000, and up to 1 million in some pools.
However, the house can offer an unreasonably high return to players limiting their wager to Han beating the spread, Shih said, adding that this encourages people to persuade their family and friends to vote for Han so that he hopefully beats the spread, wins the election and makes them rich.
This was allegedly how gambling pools backed by Chinese money helped Han beat former Democratic Progressive Party legislator Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) in last year’s Kaohsiung mayoral election, as city residents bet NT$1,000 on Han’s victory at even odds and were offered 10 times that in winnings, Shih said.
Wednesday’s raids seized 67 desktop and notebook computers, about 200 cellphones and more than 200 USB drives, as well as NT$5.45 million of local currency and NT$960,000 of foreign currency, six luxury vehicles and 16 diamonds — with the largest one having an estimated value of NT$6 million.
Nvidia Corp yesterday unveiled its new high-speed interconnect technology, NVLink Fusion, with Taiwanese application-specific IC (ASIC) designers Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) among the first to adopt the technology to help build semi-custom artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure for hyperscalers. Nvidia has opened its technology to outside users, as hyperscalers and cloud service providers are building their own cost-effective AI chips, or accelerators, used in AI servers by leveraging ASIC firms’ designing capabilities to reduce their dependence on Nvidia. Previously, NVLink technology was only available for Nvidia’s own AI platform. “NVLink Fusion opens Nvidia’s AI platform and rich ecosystem for
‘WORLD’S LOSS’: Taiwan’s exclusion robs the world of the benefits it could get from one of the foremost practitioners of disease prevention and public health, Minister Chiu said Taiwan should be allowed to join the World Health Assembly (WHA) as an irreplaceable contributor to global health and disease prevention efforts, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. He made the comment at a news conference in Taipei, hours before a Taiwanese delegation was to depart for Geneva, Switzerland, seeking to meet with foreign representatives for a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the WHA, the WHO’s annual decisionmaking meeting, which would be held from Monday next week to May 27. As of yesterday, Taiwan had yet to receive an invitation. Taiwan has much to offer to the international community’s
CAUSE AND EFFECT: China’s policies prompted the US to increase its presence in the Indo-Pacific, and Beijing should consider if this outcome is in its best interests, Lai said China has been escalating its military and political pressure on Taiwan for many years, but should reflect on this strategy and think about what is really in its best interest, President William Lai (賴清德) said. Lai made the remark in a YouTube interview with Mindi World News that was broadcast on Saturday, ahead of the first anniversary of his presidential inauguration tomorrow. The US has clearly stated that China is its biggest challenge and threat, with US President Donald Trump and US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth repeatedly saying that the US should increase its forces in the Indo-Pacific region
ALL TOGETHER: Only by including Taiwan can the WHA fully exemplify its commitment to ‘One World for Health,’ the representative offices of eight nations in Taiwan said The representative offices in Taiwan of eight nations yesterday issued a joint statement reiterating their support for Taiwan’s meaningful engagement with the WHO and for Taipei’s participation as an observer at the World Health Assembly (WHA). The joint statement came as Taiwan has not received an invitation to this year’s WHA, which started yesterday and runs until Tuesday next week. This year’s meeting of the decisionmaking body of the WHO in Geneva, Switzerland, would be the ninth consecutive year Taiwan has been excluded. The eight offices, which reaffirmed their support for Taiwan, are the British Office Taipei, the Australian Office Taipei, the
RSS