Wed, Feb 14, 2001 page11

• The criminal link

  Taiwan and China are cautiously expanding cooperation in extraditing criminals from Taiwan who often seek refuge across the Strait

  • By Derek Lee / STAFF REPORTER
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  On a hot summer afternoon in 1998, a smartly dressed, unaccompanied Taiwanese man in his 30s tried to exchange American dollars into Chinese yuan to pay for the customs entrance fee at Shenzhen (深圳), in Guangdong Province, across the border from Hong Kong.

  Having handed over his money at the customs office's currency exchange desk, he was asked to wait. A few minutes later, he was escorted to an adjacent room, where two uniformed policemen were waiting for him. After a few minutes of interrogation, the man was handcuffed and briskly led to a waiting police car.

  The arrest was a rare case of cross-strait cooperation in apprehending criminals, as the innocuous looking man was in fact a fugitive who had stolen about US$320,000 worth in cash and traveler's checks from the Chinatrust Commercial Bank (CTCS) where he had worked. The man had intended to take the money and then disappear in China.

  

  For the first time, a special alert system between Taiwan and China police authorities was put into use to apprehend a criminal. The Taiwan police, upon a request from Chinatrust, notified Beijing about the suspect, who they expected would try to escape to China with the loot.

  Coordinating the arrest was a civilian organization named the Criminal Investigation and Prevention Association (CIPA, 中華民國刑事偵防協會) of Taiwan, founded in 1992 by retired and current high-ranking police officers and Taiwan legislators.

  The organization's main purpose is to combat crime committed by Taiwanese citizens abroad. The group also functions as a semi-official channel for Taiwan to establish links with police authorities in other countries.

  

  Lu Yu-jun, chairman of the Criminal Investigation and Prevention Association, speaks at a meeting of the group attended by Taiwan business heavyweights.

  PHOTO COURTESY OF CIPA

  According to Lu Yu-jun (盧毓鈞), the current chairman of the CIPA and former Director General of the National Police Administration, "If we cannot suppress the idea that a person who commits a crime in Taiwan can go free in China, then we are going to face serious problems in public security."

  Previously, China had been reluctant to cooperate in any manner in pursuing fugitives with criminal backgrounds from Taiwan, Hong Kong or Macau. As a result, criminals found a safe haven in the vast country, with Chinese officials agreeing to overlook criminal records. The fugitives would also provide information to Chinese officials through their own channels in exchange for their undisturbed stay. The service they rendered to Chinese officials was so impressive that in 1997, China's then head of the Public Security Bureau, Ruan Cong-wu (阮崇武), said in public that some of these underground figures were "Chinese patriots." Ruan's statement only drew slight criticism from abroad.

  According to the CIPA's estimate, China now harbors approximately 300 Taiwanese suspects wanted for committing serious crimes, but Beijing has cooperated in few cases to extradite the suspects to Taiwan.

  In recent years, however, Beijing has discovered a double-edged sword in harboring these "Chinese patriots."

  In 1997, police in Beijing carrying out a routine drug bust found several cellphones abandoned at the scene of the crime. After checking phone records, police discovered that the owner of one of the cellphones was the grandson of Cheng Siyuan (程思遠), then Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of the Chinese People's Congress (中共人大常委副主席).

  The news that a grandson of one of China's highest leaders was involved in drug trafficking shocked Beijing authorities and triggered rumors about the so-called "princelings," and their drug addictions. Talk also circulated about how many of these privileged children of high-level cadres had been quietly spirited out of China to drug rehabilitation programs.

  These young, wealthy but reckless princelings were known as fixtures of the decadent underbelly of Beijing, frequenting local nightclubs, pubs and restaurants and eventually making contacts with underground figures from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau.

  One source told the Taipei Times that Hong Kong gangsters, who have resided in China the longest, first began to provide cocaine and other drugs and then Taiwanese gangs moved in later, picking up the slack in peddling drugs and hoping to improve their relationships with powerful families of China.

  Taiwan was also not forthcoming in providing Chinese police with information on several known criminals from Taiwan living in China. Beijing had previously attempted to obtain such information through pro-China political figures in Taiwan, as well as through the CIPA and other channels, but the requests were denied.

  Macau police, after a series of shootouts two years ago, had also made an urgent request to Taiwan for a list of all Taiwanese suspected gangsters who had come to Macau over the previous few years. Its request was also denied.

  Sources close to police authorities in Taiwan say they are eager to work with Macau or Chinese public security officers were it not for a lack of a formal cooperation agreement to guarantee the proper use of exchanged information.

  The source also said that unscrupulous officers in China may also use information to blackmail the criminals for personal gain, instead of assisting Interpol in solving the case. The cooperation exhibited in the Chinatrust Commercial Bank theft case was an exception to the rule, which points to the urgent need for further negotiation on cooperative police work to prevent cross-border crime.

  Furthermore, China's growing drug problem is increasing the urgency of such moves. China's three-time Olympic gold-medallist Fu Mingxia (伏明霞), for example, was caught recently at a Beijing bar under the influence of the drug ecstasy. Her name has since been dropped from an official list of "Ambassadors to the Olympic Games" for Beijng's 2008 games bid. In addition, her contract with Coca Cola Corp to replace Taiwan pop singer A-mei (張惠妹) as its new spokesperson in China is in question.

  As public security and drug problems worsen in China, authorities there are likely to reconsider the advantages of allowing fugitives to hide in China. The Chinatrust Commercial Bank case, along with the extradition of several criminals from China to Taiwan earlier this year, are far from resolving what is agreed is a huge problem, but it may mark the first small steps in expanding cooperation.
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