Law enforcement officers yesterday said that they are embarking on a strict crackdown against gamblers, especially those who bet on the result of this year's presidential election. Meanwhile, the police on Tuesday night arrested three suspects who allegedly hosted an online gambling Web site.
"Gambling is illegal already. If the total amount of bets are too much, we will also indict gambling Web sites' host on charges of `attempting to interfere with the election,'" said Minister of Justice Chen Ding-nan (陳定南). Chen said that law enforcement officers also discovered that most of these gambling site hosts are "doing their jobs" in foreign countries.
Most of them are in China, Hong Kong and Macau. However, he emphasized that officers are monitoring every move of these gamblers and will arrest them when the time is ripe.
According to the police, most gamblers believed that the Lien-Soong camp will win the election by a victory of between 500,000 to 700,000 votes, with an estimated 12 million votes cast. Each bet has to be for at least US$1,000.
Chen would not confirm the information but said that, if true, it will definitely fit the charge of "attempting to interfere with the election."
He said that officers had not arrested anybody related to any huge bets like these as of press time yesterday.
"I have ordered all law enforcement officers to, from now on, carry out the strictest crackdown on gambling, especially gambling that is related to the election," Chen said.
"I hope these crazy gamblers and their huge bets will not affect the result of the election," he said.
Chen said that the police will be the main force to rely on for the crackdown.
"We have 80,000 police officers but only about 3,000 prosecutors and special agents from the ministry's Bureau of Investigation," Chen said.
"Police officers know better than anybody else how to carry out this mission as they have been cracking down on gamblers for years," he said.
The National Police Administration's Criminal Investigation Bureau's Ninth Division, which is also known as the Internet Crime Investigation Squad, arrested Taipei County natives Pan Peng-shan (
In addition to the arrest of the three suspects at Pan's Taishan residence, the police also confiscated a computer, flyers advertising their Web site and an Internet server.
The police said that the three suspects allegedly constructed a Web site for Internet surfers to bet on the result of the presidential election.
The squad said that the three started their "business" two days ago so they have not yet earned any commission from their "customers."
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
UPDATED TEST: The new rules aim to assess drivers’ awareness of risky behaviors and how they respond under certain circumstances, the Highway Bureau said Driver’s license applicants who fail to yield to pedestrians at intersections or to check blind spots, or omit pointing-and-calling procedures would fail the driving test, the Highway Bureau said yesterday. The change is set to be implemented at the end of the month, and is part of the bureau’s reform of the driving portion of the test, which has been criticized for failing to assess whether drivers can operate vehicles safely. Sedan drivers would be tested regarding yielding to pedestrians and turning their heads to check blind spots, while drivers of large vehicles would be tested on their familiarity with pointing-and-calling
RSS