Taiwan will continue efforts to track down nearly US$30 million that was allegedly stolen by two diplomatic brokers three years ago, the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said on Sunday.
Local prosecutors said they have maintained contact with their counterparts in Singapore and the US in a bid to recover the US$29.8 million (NT$965 million) that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) wired to a Singapore bank account on Sept. 15, 2006, ostensibly to facilitate the establishment of diplomatic ties with Papua New Guinea.
The money was remitted to an account at Singapore’s OCBC Bank jointly held by the two brokers, Wu Shih-tsai (吳思材), a Singaporean national, and his partner, Ching Chi-ju (金紀玖), a Taiwanese with a US passport who was commissioned by the ministry in 2006 to help facilitate the deal.
The ministry asked Wu and Ching for a statement of the account early last year after discovering that by Dec. 1, 2006, all the money in the joint account had disappeared without any progress being made with Papua New Guinea.
Wu, without knowing that the ministry was aware of the fraud, produced a false bank statement on a notebook computer and gave it to the ministry.
He was taken into custody by prosecutors in May last year and indicted for forging the bank statement and lying to the police after he made up a story about being threatened by an unidentified gunman. He was found guilty of the charges a month later and sentenced to 28 months in prison.
Prosecutors said NT$300 million in bank accounts held by Wu and Ching and property Wu bought in Taipei City had been frozen. Some NT$70 million of the assets were in Wu’s name.
The Singapore High Court ruled on Saturday that the S$2.1 million (US$1.49 million) that had been in another of Wu’s accounts at OCBC Bank be returned to the Taiwanese authorities.
Meanwhile, Taipei prosecutors listed Ching, who is said to be living in California, as one of Taiwan’s most wanted fugitives last May as they continued their investigation into the case.
The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said it had asked for judicial assistance from the US government and suggested that US prosecutors question Ching on Taiwan’s behalf or allow Taiwanese prosecutors to travel to California to question Ching.
They have yet to receive a response from the US government.
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