Taipei prosecutors yesterday launched an investigation into officials at the Directorate-General of Customs over its possible involvement in a corruption scandal.
Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office spokesman Wang Wen-te (王文德) said eight prosecutors led 216 agents from the Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau in raids at 39 locations nationwide.
The offices and residences of Directorate-General of Customs Deputy Director-General Lu Tsai-yih (呂財益), Keelung Customs Office Deputy Director Chang Liang--chang (張良章) and Department of Valuation Director Shih Chung-mei (史中美) were among the locations searched, Wang said.
Lu and three other officials were summoned for questioning following the raids. Chang and Shih were not questioned, Wang said.
Interrogations were ongoing as of press time. Wang said requests could be made for detention.
More than 20 people from domestic trading companies were also summoned for questioning, the spokesman said, adding that investigators had seized a number of “suspicious” accounting books at the trading companies.
Wang said investigators suspected officials had requested bribes from trading companies in exchange for allowing them to import restricted or banned items into the country.
Wang said some officials were suspected of accepting sexual favors from prostitutes or drinks at hostess bars from the trading companies, adding that some evidence had already been collected.
The restricted goods that may have entered the county included stones used in construction, fishery goods, liquor and agricultural products, with a number of those coming from China, Wang said.
Wang said an assistant of a Greater Kaohsiung legislator surnamed Chang was suspected of acting as a middleman for officials and businesspeople. That individual was also being questioned, he said.
Customs officials were ranked last in the latest annual corruption perception index list released by Transparency International’s Taiwan branch.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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