Liu Kuan-chun (劉冠軍), former chief of the payments section of the National Security Bureau (NSB), and his wife Meng Wen-hua (孟雯華), who are on the run after being accused of having embezzled NT$190 million (US$6 million) from secret bureau funds were yesterday ordered to repay the funds by the Taipei District Court.
The NSB sued the couple for NT$60 million in order to regain some of its losses and the court yesterday handed down a judgment ordering the two to return the NT$60 million plus interest accumulated from 2002 until the debt is paid off.
The case can be appealed again.
The verdict states that Liu’s position had put him in control of NT$30 billion related to several large projects. The funds were kept in time deposit bank accounts and Liu used his position to understate the interest received and saved it in a private time deposit account, thus embezzling NT$192,207,000.
The NSB claims that Liu used more than NT$38 million to buy a Taipei house in his wife’s name, and that the rest was invested in US dollar travelers checks, shares and personal spending.
Liu, who left Taiwan with his wife in 2000, is one of the nation’s top ten most wanted criminals. The Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau traced Liu to Bangkok in January 2002 and then he went to North America.
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