Taiwan and China have arrested a total of 122 people on charges of telephone fraud in the largest-ever joint police operation carried out by the two sides, Taiwanese law enforcement officials said yesterday.
Together, the two sides mobilized more than 1,000 officers for raids launched simultaneously against a number of criminal groups in Taiwan and China on Monday, the Criminal Investigation Bureau said in a statement.
“The joint operation has set a new example for the two sides' efforts to crack down on crimes,” the bureau said, adding that Taiwanese police had arrested 66 suspects from various gangs, while their Chinese counterparts rounded up 56.
The arrests came as greater interaction between Taiwan and China has made illegal cooperation across the Taiwan Strait easier.
Criminals in Taiwan call people in China and trick their victims into revealing their ID and bank account numbers, which they then use to empty victims’ accounts, the bureau said.
Similarly, Chinese criminals target people in Taiwan, thinking the fraud is harder to detect than if they made domestic calls.
The bureau said criminal groups managed to con more than 1,300 people out of at least NT$1.5 billion (US$47 million).
It said Taiwanese police cracked down on 57 locations in 12 counties on Monday, seizing NT$60 million in addition to the 66 arrests. In China, police simultaneously struck thousands of locations in more than 20 provinces.
Taiwan and China signed an agreement in April last year to assist each other on judicial matters and cooperate in fighting crime. Since then, the two sides have held a series of meetings and discussions in which they agreed to work together on scams, as they are a major problem for both, the bureau said.
The two sides have together busted more than 60 scam rings operating across the Taiwan Strait, with more than 400 people arrested and about NT$10 billion in unlawful gains seized since the agreement went into effect last year.
The bureau said that compared with the more than 24,000 cases of scam and fraud involving some NT$7 billion in the first half of last year, about 20,000 cases involving NT$4 billion were reported in the same period this year, which shows that the situation remains serious.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is pushing for residents of Kinmen and Lienchiang counties to acquire Chinese ID cards in a bid to “blur national identities,” a source said. The efforts are part of China’s promotion of a “Kinmen-Xiamen twin-city living sphere, including a cross-strait integration pilot zone in China’s Fujian Province,” the source said. “The CCP is already treating residents of these outlying islands as Chinese citizens. It has also intensified its ‘united front’ efforts and infiltration of those islands,” the source said. “There is increasing evidence of espionage in Kinmen, particularly of Taiwanese military personnel being recruited by the
ENTERTAINERS IN CHINA: Taiwanese generally back the government being firm on infiltration and ‘united front’ work,’ the Asia-Pacific Elite Interchange Association said Most people support the government probing Taiwanese entertainers for allegedly “amplifying” the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda, a survey conducted by the Asia-Pacific Elite Interchange Association showed on Friday. Public support stood at 56.4 percent for action by the Mainland Affairs Council and the Ministry of Culture to enhance scrutiny on Taiwanese performers and artists who have developed careers in China while allegedly adhering to the narrative of Beijing’s propaganda that denigrates or harms Taiwanese sovereignty, the poll showed. Thirty-three percent did not support the action, it showed. The poll showed that 51.5 percent of respondents supported the government’s investigation into Taiwanese who have
South Korean K-pop girl group Blackpink are to make Kaohsiung the first stop on their Asia tour when they perform at Kaohsiung National Stadium on Oct. 18 and 19, the event organizer said yesterday. The upcoming performances will also make Blackpink the first girl group ever to perform twice at the stadium. It will be the group’s third visit to Taiwan to stage a concert. The last time Blackpink held a concert in the city was in March 2023. Their first concert in Taiwan was on March 3, 2019, at NTSU Arena (Linkou Arena). The group’s 2022-2023 “Born Pink” tour set a
A Philippine official has denied allegations of mistreatment of crew members during Philippine authorities’ boarding of a Taiwanese fishing vessel on Monday. Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) spokesman Nazario Briguera on Friday said that BFAR law enforcement officers “observed the proper boarding protocols” when they boarded the Taiwanese vessel Sheng Yu Feng (昇漁豐號) and towed it to Basco Port in the Philippines. Briguera’s comments came a day after the Taiwanese captain of the Sheng Yu Feng, Chen Tsung-tun (陳宗頓), held a news conference in Pingtung County and accused the Philippine authorities of mistreatment during the boarding of
RSS