Accusations of financial impropriety mounted against independent presidential candidate James Soong (宋楚瑜) yesterday, when a member of the Chung Hsing Bills Finance Corp (中興票券公司) investigation team revealed that Soong's sister-in-law, Chen Pi-yun (陳碧雲), apparently used third-person accounts to transfer around NT$180 million (US$6 million) to the US.
Local media quoted the investigator yesterday as saying Chen had begun transferring the money to the bank accounts of two individuals in San Francisco in 1997 and had continued to do so up to the present.
The source also claimed that Chen has not fully revealed the extent of her financial holdings, which number more than 100 accounts.
Chen is a manager at the Chung Hsing Bills Finance Corp, and has been managing funds raised for Soong's election campaign.
Wang Kuang-yu (
A separate high-ranking investigator revealed that during an investigation into the illegal election donations in 1994 and 1995, the Investigation Bureau discovered an account under Soong's nephew Wang Tze-chiang's (王自強) name that was used to disburse nearly NT$100 million during the elections of the Provincial Assembly speaker and deputy speakers, reports said.
Wang was serving his two-year compulsory military service at the time, raising investigators' suspicions.
Superiors halted the investigation, claiming the money was a "sensitive" issue, the source claims. The case has been sitting and "collecting dust" in the Investigation Bureau for the last five years, said the investigator.
A different version of the story leaked to local media which claims that 30 checks of NT$5 million each were issued to 30 different candidates for the Provincial Assembly between November and December 1994 from a bank account under the name of James Soong's son, Soong Chen-yuan (宋鎮遠).
Investigators and tax auditors allegedly made the discovery while searching for evidence of Soong-related funds in the Chung Hsing Bills Finance Corp case.
While on the campaign trail in Ilan yesterday, Soong lashed back at the KMT, saying the party is using "white terror" tactics to "raid" private family information in an attempt to find a way to discredit him.
Answering questions about his own involvement in illegal activities during his time in government, Soong said he "carried out this type of work" under the direction of others, but never ordered it.
Illegal phone taps, letter searches, and tax audits were all acceptable in the past for national security reasons, but "this changed with the tide of public opinion," Soong said.
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