The government is using a revision to the Criminal Code that is to take effect tomorrow to request a court ruling that is expected to expedite a decision by Swiss authorities to return US$550 million in a deceased arms broker’s frozen bank account to Taiwan.
Charges against broker Andrew Wang (汪傳浦), wanted for his role in the purchase of Lafayette frigates from France in the 1990s, were dropped after Taiwanese officials based in London confirmed his death in the UK last year. Wang, 86, died on Jan. 20.
He left US$550 million in a Swiss bank that was determined to be illegal commission paid to him for the frigate acquisition.
Deputy Minister of Justice Chen Ming-tang (陳明堂) on Tuesday said that the Swiss government and the bank would not release the funds to Taiwan until they received a Taiwanese court ruling confiscating the money.
Before Article 38 of the Criminal Code was amended, local courts could not make a ruling on confiscating assets belonging to Taiwanese. That provision has been revised, allowing the government to confiscate illicit gains, Chen said.
With the revision taking effect tomorrow, Chen said the ministry would ask a court to hand down a ruling to confiscate Wang’s money, and the ruling would be shown to the Swiss authorities, giving them legal grounds to release the funds.
Asked if the Criminal Code revision would be used to repatriate more illicit assets, Chen said the prosecution is compiling relevant data, which would be made public soon.
He said there are cases involving at least NT$10 billion (US$309 million) hidden abroad by Taiwan’s top economic criminals, including Rebar Asia-Pacific Group founder Wang You-theng (王又曾), who died last month in California, and Tuntex Group chairman Chen Yu-hao (陳由豪), who is living in China.
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:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching