In the latest corruption scandal to rock the National Immigration Agency (NIA), prosecutors from the Chiayi District Prosecutors Office raided an agency office yesterday in Chiayi County morning and took the office director into custody on suspicion of collusion with human traffickers, agency officials said.
Acting on information suggesting that NIA Chiayi branch office Director Lin Shun-dang (林順當) had helped local traffickers of illegal foreign laborers in exchange for bribes, some five prosecutors, accompanied by Bureau of Investigation officials, descended on the branch office and Lin's residence in Chiayi City at 10am yesterday and detained Lin and impounded evidence, the Central News Agency reported.
NIA Deputy Director Steve Wu (吳學燕) and NIA official Chao Guang-chung (趙光中) confirmed the raid yesterday, but declined to comment further, citing an ongoing investigation.
"We will cooperate fully [with the investigation] and seek the appropriate punishment for any wrongdoing," Wu told the Taipei Times by telephone.
Lin, 43, is suspected of giving notice to Chiayi-based brokers who have trafficked and introduced illegal foreign laborers to local businesses before inspections or raids by immigration authorities, the news agency's report said.
Lin also allegedly arrested illegal foreign laborers who had caused problems for the brokers without implicating the brokers, received kickbacks and was frequently wined and dined for his services, it said.
The NIA would wait until the "situation is clear" before deciding how to "further handle [the matter]," a press release posted on the agency's Web site yesterday said.
In April, three agency officers based in Taoyuan and Ilan counties were arrested on charges of collusion with human traffickers.
That case followed what Wu had said was the "suspicious disappearance" of hundreds of visa permits from an agency office in Taipei County in March, sparking concerns that human traffickers had positioned moles in key posts throughout the agency.
At least one officer in that case has come under investigation for allegedly handing off the permits to traffickers to allow foreign laborers to illegally re-enter the country after having already worked here and left.
In a Taipei Times exclusive in April, Wu placed the blame for that month's case on the National Police Agency (NPA), alleging that the NPA had quietly transferred many officers it knew were under investigation for corruption to the newly formed NIA to use as leverage against immigration authorities, a charge the NPA has denied.
Established in January, the NIA is waging turf wars with the NPA over which agency has jurisdiction in busting certain human-trafficking rings, Wu said at the time.
The NPA has decided against informing the NIA about which officers with a questionable service record had been transferred so that the NPA can instigate raids against them and plunge the NIA into controversy at will, Wu alleged.
"It's a conspiracy," Wu had said during the April interview.
What's worse, there are at least 20 more officers in the NIA that the agency doesn't know are under investigation for collusion with traffickers because the NPA refuses to pass such information on to the immigration agency, Wu said then.
Asked if yesterday's raid was the result of a conspiracy by the NPA, Wu said: "No, the NPA is not involved."
Right-wing political scientist Laura Fernandez on Sunday won Costa Rica’s presidential election by a landslide, after promising to crack down on rising violence linked to the cocaine trade. Fernandez’s nearest rival, economist Alvaro Ramos, conceded defeat as results showed the ruling party far exceeding the threshold of 40 percent needed to avoid a runoff. With 94 percent of polling stations counted, the political heir of outgoing Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves had captured 48.3 percent of the vote compared with Ramos’ 33.4 percent, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal said. As soon as the first results were announced, members of Fernandez’s Sovereign People’s Party
EMERGING FIELDS: The Chinese president said that the two countries would explore cooperation in green technology, the digital economy and artificial intelligence Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday called for an “equal and orderly multipolar world” in the face of “unilateral bullying,” in an apparent jab at the US. Xi was speaking during talks in Beijing with Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi, the first South American leader to visit China since US special forces captured then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro last month — an operation that Beijing condemned as a violation of sovereignty. Orsi follows a slew of leaders to have visited China seeking to boost ties with the world’s second-largest economy to hedge against US President Donald Trump’s increasingly unpredictable administration. “The international situation is fraught
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) plans to make advanced 3-nanometer chips in Japan, stepping up its semiconductor manufacturing roadmap in the country in a triumph for Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s technology ambitions. TSMC is to adopt cutting-edge technology for its second wafer fab in Kumamoto, company chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said yesterday. That is an upgrade from an original blueprint to produce 7-nanometer chips by late next year, people familiar with the matter said. TSMC began mass production at its first plant in Japan’s Kumamoto in late 2024. Its second fab, which is still under construction, was originally focused on
GROWING AMBITIONS: The scale and tempo of the operations show that the Strait has become the core theater for China to expand its security interests, the report said Chinese military aircraft incursions around Taiwan have surged nearly 15-fold over the past five years, according to a report released yesterday by the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Department of China Affairs. Sorties in the Taiwan Strait were previously irregular, totaling 380 in 2020, but have since evolved into routine operations, the report showed. “This demonstrates that the Taiwan Strait has become both the starting point and testing ground for Beijing’s expansionist ambitions,” it said. Driven by military expansionism, China is systematically pursuing actions aimed at altering the regional “status quo,” the department said, adding that Taiwan represents the most critical link in China’s
RSS