Taipei prosecutors yesterday searched the Taipei residence of talk show hostess Dee Hsu (徐熙娣, better known as Little S) in Taipei and questioned family members on suspicion of illegal trading.
Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office spokesman Huang Mo-hsin (黃謀信) said that after prosecutors investigated allegations of false advertising by the Top Pot Bakery chain, which Hsu had promoted, because it admitted to using artificial flavorings in its products, prosecutors came to suspect executives at its mother company — Genome International Biomedical Co — of illegal trading.
Huang said the residence of Genome chairman Hsu Hsun-ping (徐洵平) was also searched yesterday morning.
Hsu Hsun-ping and his wife, Dee Hsu’s husband, Mike Xu (許雅鈞), and her father-in-law, Xu Ching-hsiang (許慶祥), and a financial executive at the company have also been summoned for questioning. Both Xus hold shares in Genome.
The interviews were ongoing as of press time.
Huang said the five are suspects.
According to Huang, in the middle of this year, after the learning that Genome was not performing well, the five suspects being questioned sold a large quantity of shares within a few days to avoid losses of about NT$200 million (US$6.6 million).
He said those sales might constitute illegal trading.
The district prosecutors’ office searched Top Pot Bakery outlets in Taipei in late August and questioned staff as part of a probe into the Taipei City Government’s allegations that the bakery uses artificial flavorings in its baked goods.
That probe is ongoing.
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