The Panchiao District Prosecutors' Office yesterday took steps to stop an organized fraud operation, indicting 11 people, including several employees of companies affiliated with Chunghwa Telecom. The fraud operation involved misusing people's personal information to get fraudulent phone lines that were used in placing threatening phone calls.
According to a press release issued by the prosecutors' office, Kuo Kuo-ping (
Employees of phone installation companies that had contracts with Chunghwa Telecom then sought out empty buildings and houses where phone lines could be installed covertly.
The phone lines were set to forward calls to other phone numbers provided by Kuo.
Calls were then made to a large number of people asking for money under various pretenses.
By forwarding the calls several times, Kuo was able to prevent investigators from tracing the calls.
Investigators estimate that the fraud organization has bilked victims of over NT$100 million (US$3.03 million).
The employees of the companies affiliated with Chunghwa Telecom were paid NT$1,500 for installing each phone line and NT$500 for enabling calls to be forwarded to designated phone numbers.
Chang Feng-hsiung (張豐雄), a Chunghwa Telecom spokesman, said yesterday that the district prosecutors' office had yet to formally communicate its findings to the company's management, but that Chunghwa Telecom would terminate its contract with any phone installation company found to be working with the fraud outfit.
Chang said that Chunghwa has been aware of the fraud since March of last year but that few clients were affected because the company had noticed problematic behavior on the part of at least six contracted companies early on.
He said that Chunghwa had performed on-site investigations regarding problematic phone-line applications, rejecting several applications and reporting the cases to the police.
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