Prosecutors yesterday indicted a top-ranking aviation police official on corruption charges following an investigation into allegations that a Chinese company used sexual enticements and kickbacks to secure sales of substandard Chinese-made X-ray scanners for use at Taiwanese airports.
In 2014, Sun Yi-ming (孫一鳴), then-chief of the Aviation Police Bureau’s Aviation Security Section, was in charge of a government procurement contract totaling NT$70 million (US$2.18 million at current exchange rates) for 17 X-ray scanners for airport security checks of passengers and luggage.
After their installation, airport security officials took to calling the machines “blind X-ray scanners” after finding that the devices are of substandard quality and performance compared with international brands, prone to breaking down and are frequently unable to detect restricted items.
Investigators found that the machines were made by China-based Nuctech Co (同方威視), which had the parts shipped for assembly and repackaging in Japan to deceive Taiwanese officials, who believed the devices were made in Japan, bypassing a ban on Chinese-made products in procurements of high-tech machines with uses related to national security.
Taoyuan prosecutor Liu Yu-shu (劉玉書) said the investigation indicated that 48-year-old Sun received NT$3.06 million from Nuctech in kickbacks and approved the procurement because he was seduced by a Chinese woman named Li Weilin (李委霖), who was then reportedly Nuctech’s sales manager for Taiwan.
Li, 32, allegedly seduced Sun, despite him being married with children, developing from frequent sexual trysts into a long-term extramarital affair beginning in 2013.
According to travel records, between 2014 and April this year, Li accompanied Sun on holiday trips to Singapore, the UK and various Chinese cities, investigators said, adding that a search of Sun’s residence in May uncovered USB memory sticks containing sex tapes they had produced during their travels.
Officials said the case was a classic case of a “honey trap,” a ploy used by intelligence agencies to entrap a male target with a female agent through the enticement of sex, adding that this case involved industrial espionage with national security implications.
When the case first came to light last year, airport security experts called it a serious breach of national security, as the X-ray scanners are networked and could be remotely controlled by Chinese operators to collect data or be rigged to enable the smuggling of weapons into Taiwan.
Investigators also found an e-mail to Sun written by Li, in which she made various promises to continue their relationship, such as vowing to remain faithful, give her love to Sun, always obey Sun’s commands and unconditionally support his decisions.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
US President Donald Trump said "it’s up to" Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be "very unhappy" with a change in the "status quo," the New York Times said in an interview published yesterday. Xi "considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing," Trump told the newspaper on Wednesday. "But I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that," he added. "I hope he doesn’t do that." Trump made the comments in
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
RSS