A 67-year-old dishwasher at a Chiayi County restaurant helped police nab two men involved in a fraud racket after losing her savings to the criminal gang, police in the county said on Monday.
The woman, identified only by her surname — Chang (張) — told police a few days ago that she had been defrauded of NT$480,000 after being called and told that she might have been involved in a case of deception, the police said.
Chang said the person on the telephone told her to pick up a “public document” related to the case at a nearby convenience store.
After reading the document, which appeared to have been issued by the Taipei District Prosecutors Office, she became convinced the case was true.
She followed the swindlers’ instructions to hand over her savings to a self-proclaimed prosecutor, whom she said was waiting for her on the corner of the alley near her home, she said.
However, after handing over the money, she felt something was wrong and told the police, who confirmed her cash had been stolen.
Police in Chiayi said that with Chang’s help, they were able to arrest the two suspects the next day.
According to the police, the 19-year-old suspects confessed to the theft and said they had been hired by a gang from Taoyuan County to work as cash couriers. They also said they had only received a NT$5,000 commission each after handing over Chang’s money to the organization, the police said.
The two men were later handed over to Chiayi District Prosecutors Office for further questioning.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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