Prosecutors in charge of investigating former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) alleged money-laundering activities and secret overseas bank accounts recently named former presidential adviser Wu Li-pei (吳澧培) as a defendant in the case.
The Supreme Prosecutors’ Office’s Special Investigation Panel (SIP) yesterday said prosecutors recently named Wu as a defendant because he allegedly had a part in helping the former first family launder money.
Prosecutors allege that in February last year, former first lady Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍) wired US$1.91 million from her brother Wu Ching-mao’s (吳景茂) bank accounts in Singapore to Wu Li-pei’s bank accounts. Prosecutors allege the money was divided into three transactions to avoid arousing suspicion.
Prosecutors have frozen the funds in Wu Li-pei’s bank accounts until the investigation is concluded.
Other people who have recently been named as defendants for allegedly helping the former first family launder money include former China Development Financial Holding Corp president Angelo Koo (辜仲瑩), China Development Financial chief financial officer Sherie Chiu (邱德馨), former China Steel Corp chairman Lin Wen-yuan (林文淵), Yuanta Financial Holding Co president Victor Ma (馬維建), former Yuanta Securities Corp board member Tu Li-ping (杜麗萍) and chairwoman Judy Tu (杜麗莊), Wu Ching-mao and his wife Chen Chun-ying (陳俊英), as well as Chen Shui-bian’s son Chen Chih-chung (陳致中) and daughter-in-law Huang Jui-ching (黃睿靚).
In related news, prosecutors yesterday summoned former Presidential Office secretary Chen Hsin-yi (陳心怡) to question her on suspicion that she destroyed evidence related to the former president’s corruption cases. She was among the defendants who were investigated by prosecutors at the request of the Taipei District Court.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift