Kaohsiung police said yesterday they have cracked a fraud ring involving a local family that had cooperated with Chinese criminals to deceive close to 1,000 people into paying them almost NT$100 million over the past few years.
The city's criminal police unit said they have arrested Tsai Ming-hsiao (蔡明孝) and eight others on charges of forgery and fraud and seized more than NT$1 million in cash, 15 mobile phones, six Easycards, 71 bank and postal office accounts, 90 cash cards, two personal computers, forged chops and drugs.
A police spokesman said the ring members sent letters in the name of Kaohsiung District Court prosecutors Lin Yung-fu (林永富) and Chung Chung-hsiao (鍾忠孝) warning the recipients that their bank accounts had been frozen.
The suspects also allegedly called parents in the name of their children's teachers, saying their kids had been kidnapped in school.
The mail recipients and parents were then induced into divulging the personal identification numbers of their cash cards and bank accounts to the suspects.
Ring leader Tsai would then ring up members to go to a certain ATM to withdraw the cash and deposit it into another account controlled by Tsai's Chinese counterpart named "Doggie."
Police said that most of the ring members belong to a family of "Taoists."
The suspects allegedly spent the day loitering around different Internet cafes to trap people with their bogus schemes and spent nights holding seance sessions for clients.
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
A total lunar eclipse, an astronomical event often referred to as a “blood moon,” would be visible to sky watchers in Taiwan starting just before midnight on Sunday night, the Taipei Astronomical Museum said. The phenomenon is also called “blood moon” due to the reddish-orange hue it takes on as the Earth passes directly between the sun and the moon, completely blocking direct sunlight from reaching the lunar surface. The only light is refracted by the Earth’s atmosphere, and its red wavelengths are bent toward the moon, illuminating it in a dramatic crimson light. Describing the event as the most important astronomical phenomenon
BETTER SERVICE QUALITY: From Nov. 10, tickets with reserved seats would only be valid for the date, train and route specified on the ticket, THSRC said Starting on Nov. 10, high-speed rail passengers with reserved seats would be required to exchange their tickets to board an earlier train. Passengers with reserved seats on a specific train are currently allowed to board earlier trains on the same day and sit in non-reserved cars, but as this is happening increasingly often, and affecting quality of travel and ticket sales, Taiwan High-Speed Rail Corp (THSRC) announced that it would be canceling the policy on Nov. 10. It is one of several new measures launched by THSRC chairman Shih Che (史哲) to improve the quality of service, it said. The company also said
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