Tears well up in Chen A-hsiu’s eyes as she recalls her son’s first trip abroad — to Thailand — which will also be his last until he finishes a 12-year jail term there for fraud.
Chen said her son, a 25-year-old high-school dropout, was tricked by a “friend” into going to Bangkok to unknowingly work for a fraud ring before he was arrested and imprisoned last year.
“They gave him forged ATM cards to withdraw money, and when he felt something was wrong, they threatened him to keep him doing it until he was caught,” said Chen, who is 50 and works as a janitor in Taipei.
Photo: Sam Yeh, AFP
The case is part of a trend of Taiwanese fraud rings expanding into Southeast Asia as they seek new business opportunities after being driven from China.
China was, until a few years ago, a favorite destination for Taiwanese criminals hoping to evade arrest and sometimes start new lucrative careers.
However, that changed when Taipei and Beijing signed a crime-fighting agreement in 2009, and in less than a year, more than 1,600 suspected swindlers were rounded up on both sides, according to Taiwanese police.
Photo: Sam Yeh, AFP
“Fraud rings now relocate to Southeast Asia,” said Tsai Tyan-muh (蔡田木), a criminologist at Central Police University. “The area is close by and the criminals can spread across several countries, making it less likely they’ll get caught.”
Arrests of Taiwanese and Chinese nationals have since been reported in Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines.
In February, a decision by the Philippine government to deport a group of 24 suspects, including 14 Taiwanese, to China triggered a diplomatic row with Taipei.
“Fraud rings are becoming common because they’re operating with virtually no costs, but can bag huge profits if they succeed,” Tsai said.
“They’re good at copying [each other’s] business models, so they come back quickly after each crackdown,” he said.
Technological advances have also made it more convenient for fraudsters to operate across borders, as shown in a growing number of scams involving instant messaging, social networking and online bidding sites, police said.
“Fraud rings are going international and have more tools at their disposal. It’s getting more difficult to track down the masterminds,” said Liang Chuang-ting, an anti-fraud expert with the Criminal Investigation Bureau.
In Thailand, where more than 100 Taiwanese and Chinese suspects were detained last year, the police said they are gearing up for “major arrests soon” after collaborating with their Taiwanese and Chinese counterparts.
Kitti Sapaothong, deputy commander of the Royal Thai Police’s economic crime unit, said Taiwanese and Chinese gangs arrange their business across borders so they are harder to crack.
“Gangs based in Thailand normally target people in Taiwan or China or abroad, while those targeting Thais are based in Taiwan or China. That’s why it’s harder for us to arrest them,” he said.
Chang Hsieh-hai (張學海) has made several visits to Thailand’s crowded jails in his capacity as head of the Taiwan Association for Legal Aid, a non-governmental organization with a mission to help people in legal trouble.
He estimated that dozens of young Taiwanese are now held in Thai prisons on fraud charges.
“I believe that some were lured to Thailand by false job deals only to become pawns of the fraud rings and were slapped with heavy prison terms of up to 20 years,” Chang said.
Fraud rings usually pick young people who have never gone abroad, speak no English and are from humble backgrounds like Chen’s son so they are more easily manipulated, he said.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on the other hand, has said many young people arrested in Thailand were aware of the nature of their “job,” but fell for the fat salaries and luxury houses promised by fraud rings.
Chen, however, insisted that her son fell victim to a scam.
“He is a simple young man looking for a job, but now he will forever have a criminal record. I dare not think how he is going to spend 12 years in a jail abroad,” said Chen, who is appealing her son’s case.
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,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods