Hu Gua and three others indicted in gambling scandal

Popular variety show host Hu Gua (胡瓜) was indicted yesterday for installing cameras at his residence to cheat other gamblers.

"Hu Gua, his brother Hu Chi-hsuan (胡技烜), Hu's friend Tien Shu-ling (田淑玲) and Hsu Chih-chung (許志煌) were indicted for fraud for cheating in mahjong games," Taipei District Prosecutors' Office spokesman Lin Pang-liang (林邦樑) said yesterday.

Lin said the four made NT$15,200,000 (US$472,880) in illegal profits.

Prosecutors said Hu Gua had used a luxury apartment on Dunhua South Road as a private mahjong casino.

In 2003, Hu's elder brother Hu Chi-hsuan asked his friend Hsu to install four hidden cameras in the apartment's ceiling.

During mahjong games, Hsu used the cameras to monitor players' tiles from a back room and used wireless radio to tell Hu Chi-hsuan what he saw. In this way, Hu Chi-hsuan was able to win almost every game, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said that Hu Gua knew what was going on, and was involved.

When Tien, a frequent gambler at the apartment, discovered that she had been cheated, she asked Hu Gua to compensate her. Instead, he agreed to let her share in the spoils.

High-society dame Chen Jing-jing's (陳菁菁) mother, also a frequent visitor to the apartment, lost NT$13,200,000 in mahjong games in 2003.

She suspected she had been cheated and asked Hu Gua to return her money, but he refused.

Chen and her mother subsequently filed a lawsuit against Hu last November.