Police on Wednesday night arrested 10 members of the Bamboo Union organized-crime network for allegedly extorting money from popular singer Yu Tien (
"Bamboo Union gangsters Cheng Chien-cheng (鄭建誠), Lai Chien-hung (賴建鴻) and other gangsters were often hired by creditors to threaten debtors to repay money," the Criminal Investigation Bureau said in a press statement. "The police have determined that they threatened victims, beat them or kidnapped them. They have had a bad impact on public order."
Police said Cheng, Lai and the other suspects said that Yu owed them NT$6 million (US$191,000). In March they went to Yu's father's home in Hsinchu County, poured paint on the doors and walls and wrote on the wall, threatening to hurt Yu's family if the payments were not made.
Yu then reported the matter to the police, whose investigation indicated that Cheng and Lai had organized the extortion attempt in conjunction with other Bamboo Union gangsters.
Police said they spent more than two months gathering evidence before swooping. More than 80 police raided 11 locations in Taichung and Tainan counties on Wednesday night.
Yu and his wife, singer Lee Ya-ping (
Lee told reporters that Yu was so unnerved by the threats that he had to see a psychiatrist. Yu added that he did not owe anybody money.
Police said Cheng, Lai and the other gangsters had threatened alleged debtors on at least six occasions. In February, they threatened a businessman surnamed Lin and received NT$8.7 million from him.
Police said that in April, Cheng and Lai led the gangsters to abduct a man surnamed Cho, and detained him in a Taichung hotel for 11 days. The gangsters had asked Cho to call his aunt and have her meet them at a Taichung bus station. The gangsters planned to kidnap Cho's aunt when she arrived, police said.
Instead, Cho's aunt contacted police, who accompanied her to the station.
Police said Cho was eventually released after paying the gangsters NT$300,000.
Yu is one of the most popular singers in the country and is considered influential in entertainment circles because of his role in resolving disputes.
He has said he might run for a Taipei City councilor's seat in the next election.
The Bamboo Union is one of the biggest criminal rings in Taiwan. The network is dominated by Mainlanders, and has been actively involved in pan-blue political activities since its inception.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
Taiwan is doing everything it can to prevent a military conflict with China, including building up asymmetric defense capabilities and fortifying public resilience, Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) said in a recent interview. “Everything we are doing is to prevent a conflict from happening, whether it is 2027 or before that or beyond that,” Hsiao told American podcaster Shawn Ryan of the Shawn Ryan Show. She was referring to a timeline cited by several US military and intelligence officials, who said Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the Chinese People’s Liberation Army to be ready to take military action against Taiwan
RSS