Taichung prosecutors and police officers took two vote captains and 15 borough wardens in for questioning yesterday on suspicion of vote-buying.
Vote captain Yen Jung-tsann (
Police went to the headquarters on information from a police informant. The tip also led police to vote captain and former politician Huang Te-chi (黃德治). Huang was taken in for questioning after police stopped him in his car and found NT$400,000 in the trunk. Huang denied that the money was for buying votes, but he did not tell police what the money was for.
Prosecutors received the call from the informant on Friday night and arrived at the campaign headquarters early yesterday morning. There they discovered the cash and the checks which police said they believe were to be used to buy votes for Kuo.
Prosecutors have so far detained Yen, Huang and borough wardens Cheng Tsung-wen (鄭宗文), Ho Wen-chin (何文進) and Chen Tien-kui (陳添桂). Yen, Cheng, Ho and Chen all told police that they were trying to buy votes for Kuo and said that Huang also was involved. Huang maintained his innocence.
The other suspects were still being interviewed by Taichung prosecutors as of press time last night and decisions on their detentions were still pending.
Yen admitted to investigators that he was distributing money to vote captains to use to buy votes in amounts of between NT$10,000 and NT$80,000, depending on the number of voters in a warden's district.
A Taichung prosecutor said some of the wardens who worked as vote captains had already received the money.
Taichung Chief Prosecutor Chien Feng-nian (
"Some of these suspects admitted to having accepted the money and said that they were trying to `help' the campaign. In the meantime, at the campaign headquarters, which is also Yen's residence, we also found little notes with `please support Kuo Jung-cheng' written on them as well as a regulation list to tell vote captains how to distribute the money," Chien said.
The prosecutor said that some of the local wardens, however, claim they are innocent.
"They said that they were just trying to help Kuo's campaign," Chien said.
"They said that they did not know whether Yen was trying to ask them to buy votes with the money or not."
Huang, a former National Assembly representative, has been in the news frequently after claiming he was kidnapped by a Taiwanese gangster named "A-yi" (阿義) for three days while he was on a business trip in Xiamen, China.
Huang told the local Chinese-language media that he was kidnapped on Nov. 12 and the gangster initially demanded NT$5 million in ransom. Huang said that he was able to negotiate with his captor and was released for NT$1 million.
Huang alleged that he was tortured for the three days he was held and he showed the media tattoos of four Chinese characters "lao chien chi wan" (老千之王) king of cheaters,which he claims "A-yi" tattooed on his legs.
Police said that the case is not being pursued at the moment because Huang failed to provide sufficient details to the police after he returned to Taiwan.
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