More than 70 employees of Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp (THSRC) yesterday confessed to illegally profiting from fake purchases of the company’s tickets.
To encourage employees to confess to their misdeeds, investigators arrived at the company’s offices as early as 7am to start taking statements yesterday.
Most of the employees who confessed to making illegal profits by scamming THSRC’s internal systems were service personnel at rail stations.
The compnay announced on Wednesday that it had punished some employees involved in the scam.
It said that a supervisor at a station agents had been fired, while 24 service agents were given demerits for purchasing discounted tickets in advance so they could receive coupons for free tickets or refunds after the company changed its schedules.
The company said the agents took advantage of their position to make extra money. The company’s regulations state that employees who receive two demerits lose their job.
Another 73 agents used a Father’s Day discount program in August to get half-price tickets, THSRC said.
Investigators said yesterday that most of the agents regretted what they had done, saying that they did not know their actions constituted serious crimes, such as fraud and breach of trust.
Aside from this case, THSRC is also under investigation in a larger case in which government officials and company management are suspected of irregular activities.
Prosecutors have been looking into the company’s cash flow since January on suspicions that it manipulated real estate prices, with the prices of property located near high-speed rail stations soaring even before construction had started.
They have also received reports accusing certain individuals of profiteering and of breach of trust during the planning and construction phases of the project.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
The eastern extension of the Taipei MRT Red Line could begin operations as early as late June, the Taipei Department of Rapid Transit Systems said yesterday. Taipei Rapid Transit Corp said it is considering offering one month of free rides on the new section to mark its opening. Construction progress on the 1.4km extension, which is to run from the current terminal Xiangshan Station to a new eastern terminal, Guangci/Fengtian Temple Station, was 90.6 percent complete by the end of last month, the department said in a report to the Taipei City Council's Transportation Committee. While construction began in October 2016 with an
NON-RED SUPPLY: Boosting the nation’s drone industry is becoming increasingly urgent as China’s UAV dominance could become an issue in a crisis, an analyst said Taiwan’s drone exports to Europe grew 41.7-fold from 2024 to last year, with demand from Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression the most likely driver of growth, a study showed. The Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology (DSET) in a statement on Wednesday said it found that many of Taiwan’s uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) sales were from Poland and the Czech Republic. These countries likely transferred the drones to Ukraine to aid it in its fight against the Russian invasion that started in 2022, it said. Despite the gains, Taiwan is not the dominant drone exporter to these markets, ranking second and fourth
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comment last year on Tokyo’s potential reaction to a Taiwan-China conflict has forced Beijing to rewrite its invasion plans, a retired Japanese general said. Takaichi told the Diet on Nov. 7 last year that a Chinese naval blockade or military attack on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, potentially allowing Tokyo to exercise its right to collective self-defense. Former Japan Ground Self-Defense Force general Kiyofumi Ogawa said in a recent speech that the remark has been interpreted as meaning Japan could intervene in the early stages of a Taiwan Strait conflict, undermining China’s previous assumptions
RSS