The Ministry of Justice announced yesterday that prosecutors indicted 534 elected officials since it established the Black Gold Investigation Center five years ago to crack down on corruption.
According to the ministry's statistics, prosecutors have prosecuted 534 officials for taking bribes, buying votes, or being involved in mafia gangs, and prosecutors have recovered more than NT$27.1 billion dirty money.
Those prosecuted include 23 legislators, eight city or county commissioners, 15 city or county speakers or vice speakers, 141 city councilors and 347 township heads or councilors, the statistics said.
More than 300 senior government officials and 3,256 civil servants were also indicted for bribery.
The Black Gold Investigation Center was founded in June 2000, the year Democratic Progressive Party took office. The statistics dated from June 2000 to the end of last year.
Justice Minister Morley Shih (
On Thursday, Tainan County Council Speaker Wu Chien-bao (
Prosecutors asked the court to detain Wu on Friday and the court agreed that he should be detained yesterday morning.
Prosecutors have not been able to locate Lee.
In addition, Chunghwa County Council Speaker Pai Hung-shen (
Shih said the former Kaohsiung City Council speaker Chu An-hsiung (朱安雄), who was found guilty of vote-buying in a council speakership election, was a good example of the justice ministry's determination to crack down on corruption.
He said Chu's trial -- in which many other Kaohsiung City councilors and a council vice speaker were convicted for bribery -- had cleaned up Kaohsiung politics.
Shih also pointed to the prosecution of Non-Partisan Solidarity Union (NPSU) lawmaker Tsai Hao (
He further said KMT Legislator Ho Chih-hui (何智輝) was prosecuted for accepting kickbacks form construction firms in return for contracts last year.
In addition, 14 Taipei County Councilors were prosecuted last year for jointly accepting bribes from local construction firms, he added.
Shih also said that former Council of Indigenous Peoples Chairman Chen Chien-nien (
A 72-year-old man in Kaohsiung was sentenced to 40 days in jail after he was found having sex with a 67-year-old woman under a slide in a public park on Sunday afternoon. At 3pm on Sunday, a mother surnamed Liang (梁) was with her child at a neighborhood park when they found the man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and woman, surnamed Huang (黃), underneath the slide. Liang took her child away from the scene, took photographs of the two and called the police, who arrived and arrested the couple. During questioning, Tsai told police that he had met Huang that day and offered to
LOOKING NORTH: The base would enhance the military’s awareness of activities in the Bashi Channel, which China Coast Guard ships have been frequenting, an expert said The Philippine Navy on Thursday last week inaugurated a forward operating base in the country’s northern most province of Batanes, which at 185km from Taiwan would be strategically important in a military conflict in the Taiwan Strait. The Philippine Daily Inquirer quoted Northern Luzon Command Commander Lieutenant General Fernyl Buca as saying that the base in Mahatao would bolster the country’s northern defenses and response capabilities. The base is also a response to the “irregular presence this month of armed” of China Coast Guard vessels frequenting the Bashi Channel in the Luzon Strait just south of Taiwan, the paper reported, citing a
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A magnitude 6 earthquake last night at 9:11pm struck off northeastern Yilan County, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The earthquake’s epicenter was located in waters between Toucheng Township (頭城) and Turtle Island (Gueishan Island, 龜山島), about 22.1km northeast of Yilan County Hall at a depth of 112km, CWA data showed. There were no immediate reports of damage. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effects of a temblor, was highest in Yilan’s Dongshan (冬山) and Nanao (南澳) townships and Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義), where it measured 4 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. It measured 3 in other areas of Yilan and Taipei, as
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