Two Taiwanese prosecutors who traveled to Geneva early this month have returned home with a large number of court files believed to be related to the kickback scandal involving the procurement of six Lafayette-class frigates from France in 1991, an official said on Monday.
For safety reasons, the itinerary of the two prosecutors -- Tsai Chiu-ming (蔡秋明) and Lo Jung-chien (羅榮乾) -- had been kept confidential.
State Public Prosecutor-General Wu Ying-chao (吳英昭) said the duo brought back six cases of Swiss judicial files, including 46 bank accounts under the names of Andrew Wang (汪傳浦), the key suspect in the kickback scandal, his three sons and Wang's company, all of which have been frozen by the Swiss Federal Court.
The files also include a number of previously unexposed overseas bank accounts related to the US$2.8 billion Lafayette deal, as well as information about relevant capital flow in Switzerland, Wu said, adding that the Swiss court files clearly document deposit times and destinations of the capital flow.
"Because of the enormous size of the files, it will take time for the investigation panel to complete filtering of the documents," Wu said.
According to Wu, the files do not include slush funds that Wang had remitted to other countries before the Swiss court froze his accounts. As a result, he said, it remains unclear whether the files will lead to any major breakthroughs in the grueling investigation into the high-profile corruption scandal.
The handover of the Swiss bank files marked the first judicial aid case between Taiwan and Switzerland, Wu said.
Wang was the Taiwanese agent of Thomson-CSF, the French company that originally sold the frigates to Taiwan. Thomson-CSF is now called Thales.
Wang fled Taiwan following the death of Navy Captain Yin Ching-feng (
Wang has been charged with murder, corruption, money laundering and fraud. The frigates had all been delivered to Taiwan by the mid-1990s, and both Switzerland and Liechtenstein have frozen funds in Wang's and his son's accounts that are allegedly linked to the case.
The investigations began when the Taiwanese authorities concluded from the inflated price that the Lafayette deal constituted a serious case of international corruption.
France, Liechtenstein and Taiwan, investigating whether the case had violated their laws, asked the Swiss authorities to hand over the bank documents to facilitate their investigations.
According to media reports, some US$500 million remains frozen in 46 accounts with different banks in Switzerland as part of a Swiss investigation into alleged money laundering linked to the case. Authorities in neighboring Liechtenstein have frozen around US$27 million as part of their own investigations, the reports said.
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