Authorities at the Port of Kaohsiung on Tuesday conducted raids on five warships at Tsoying Naval Base, confiscating documents and other items, and taking five naval officers in for questioning as part of a judicial probe into a major corruption scandal in the Republic of China (ROC) Navy.
Naval personnel are alleged to have colluded with contractors to siphon off diesel from ship fuel tanks to sell on the black market.
A total of 21 individuals were taken in following the raids, which were supported by military police units.
After questioning, four contractors and a petty officer, surnamed Chen (陳), were detained.
The rest were released on bail of between NT$50,000 (US$1,600) and NT$100,000.
Other navy officials allegedly caught up in the scandal and being questioned included a chief petty officer surnamed Chiu (邱), a junior grade lieutenant surnamed Tseng (曾) and a first class petty officer surnamed Lai (賴), who are all responsible for fuel supply of their respective ships.
A Kaohsiung District Prosecutors’ Office spokeman said investigators had discovered that Chen was allegedly engaging in a recent illegal transaction that saw 9,600 liters of diesel, with an estimated value of NT$2 million, siphoned from a naval ship by a contractor surnamed Kuo (郭).
The ship was said to be the Cheng Kung-class No. 1105 Ji Kuang Frigate, a modified US Oliver Hazard Perry-class warship, on which Chen was serving as petty officer responsible for the fuel supply.
A probe into corruption in the navy began last year after the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors’ Office received a tip-off from an informer.
The prosecutors coordinated with the military investigation unit and the police to monitor the suspected illegal activities involving five warships.
According to prosecutors, the businesspeople involved are contractors who secured bids for cleaning warship fuel tanks to remove sediments and chemical precipitates — a process that is conducted on a regular basis throughout the year.
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
INCREASED CAPACITY: The flights on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays would leave Singapore in the morning and Taipei in the afternoon Singapore Airlines is adding four supplementary flights to Taipei per week until May to meet increased tourist and business travel demand, the carrier said on Friday. The addition would raise the number of weekly flights it operates to Taipei to 18, Singapore Airlines Taiwan general manager Timothy Ouyang (歐陽漢源) said. The airline has recorded a steady rise in tourist and business travel to and from Taipei, and aims to provide more flexible travel arrangements for passengers, said Ouyang, who assumed the post in July last year. From now until Saturday next week, four additional flights would depart from Singapore on Monday, Wednesday, Friday
WATCH FOR HITCHHIKERS: The CDC warned those returning home from Japan to be alert for any contagious diseases that might have come back with them People who have returned from Japan following the World Baseball Classic (WBC) games during the weekend are recommended to watch for symptoms of infectious gastroenteritis, flu and measles for two weeks, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said. Flu viruses remain the most common respiratory pathogen in Taiwan in the past four weeks and the influenza B virus accounted for 55.7 percent of the tested cases, exceeding the percentage of influenza A (H3N2) infections and becoming the local dominant strain, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said at a news conference on Tuesday. There were 82,187 hospital visits for
Alumni from Japan’s Kyoto Tachibana Senior High School marching band, widely known as the “Orange Devils,” staged a flash mob performance at the Grand Hotel in Taipei yesterday to thank Taiwan for its support after the Great East Japan Earthquake. The show, performed on the earthquake’s 15th anniversary, drew more than 100 spectators, some of whom arrived two hours before the show to secure a good viewing spot. The 26-member group played selections from “High School Musical,” “Beauty and the Beast,” and their signature piece “Sing Sing Sing” and shouted “I love
RSS