The Executive Yuan yesterday launched its Anti-Money Laundering Office to clamp down on money laundering and improve the nation’s financial transparency.
“Taiwan is the first nation in the Asia-Pacific region to legislate against money laundering, but in the past 10 years, Taiwan has been falling behind in this area and might even be listed on the Asia-Pacific Group on Money Laundering watch list,” Premier Lin Chuan (林全) said at the office’s launch ceremony in Taipei.
Stricter law enforcement will not burden the financial sector, but could instead facilitate financial activities, Lin said.
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
“I have heard people say that offshore banking units would leave the nation if the Money Laundering Control Act (洗錢防制法) was enforced more rigorously, or it would affect personal and financial privacy. These are unproductive thoughts. We want people to cooperate with the government in preventing money laundering to rebuild the financial system and transform it into a more transparent and regulated environment,” Lin said.
Minister of Justice Chiu Tai-san (邱太三) said the financial sector has long neglected the importance of cracking down on money laundering, resulting in the violation of US money laundering rules by the Mega International Commercial Bank’s New York branch, for which the bank was issued a US$180 million fine in August last year.
The office is to ensure legal compliance and prevent the laundering of illegal assets on an international level, Chiu said.
All high-level officials of the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the government would be under the office’s regulation to supervise their loans and real-estate transactions, Deputy Minister of Justice Chen Ming-tang (陳明堂) said.
Relatives, close friends and aides of the officials would also be regulated, and any monetary transaction would be reviewed.
The office has of 19 staff members and is to be headed by Deputy Minister of Justice Tsai Pi-chung (蔡碧仲).
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
Taiwan is doing everything it can to prevent a military conflict with China, including building up asymmetric defense capabilities and fortifying public resilience, Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) said in a recent interview. “Everything we are doing is to prevent a conflict from happening, whether it is 2027 or before that or beyond that,” Hsiao told American podcaster Shawn Ryan of the Shawn Ryan Show. She was referring to a timeline cited by several US military and intelligence officials, who said Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the Chinese People’s Liberation Army to be ready to take military action against Taiwan
RSS