The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday confirmed that a Taiwanese expatriate is being detained in Los Angeles for alleged sexual misconduct in Belize, where he practiced acupuncture and Chinese medicine.
The Chinese-language China Times yesterday reported that Kevin Lee (李崑臨) allegedly molested several of his Belizian female patients and videotaped them as they got undressed. Many of the alleged victims were said to be wives of politically prominent men and well-known socialites.
The Taiwanese embassy in Belize has been closely monitoring the situation since late last month when the case broke and it is now assisting Belizian police with their investigation, ministry spokesman James Chang (章計平) said.
Ambassador to Belize David Wu (吳建國) said in a telephone interview with Central News Agency on Monday that Lee, who has lived in Belize for nearly two decades, had been accused of secretly filming his patients, but that he did not commit sexual assaults as has been alleged.
“This is not a sexual assault case. No wives of ranking Belize officials fell prey to Lee,” Wu said.
Wu also confirmed Lee’s arrest.
The China Times reported that a technician who was fixing Lee’s PC several weeks ago found nearly 600 video files on Lee’s hard disk that allegedly showed several Belizian socialites and ministers’ wives being sexually molested in his clinic. A disk of the videos began to circulate after an attempt to blackmail Lee failed, causing uproar in the country.
Sources who have watched the videos said the supposed victims seemed to have been sexually assaulted when in a dazed state, the report said.
The alleged victims apparently include female diplomats from other countries stationed in Belize and their dependents, prompting Belizian police to issue an international warrant for Lee through Interpol, which led to Lee’s arrest last week, the newspaper report added.
Wu said his embassy has learned that a suspect who is accused of trying to blackmail Lee showed a disk and the letter used in the blackmail attempt to a leader of the Taiwanese expatriate community in Belize.
The disk showed a patient undressing. Wu said as the two parties played the disk over dinner, a Belizian official nearby alerted a minister and the matter came to light.
The diplomat said the alleged victims were average Belizian citizens and that no wives of ranking officials were involved, as far as the embassy knew. He said reports that wives of senior officials were involved was simply speculation and that police in the country had yet to confirm them.
Because many of the 1,000 Taiwanese living in Belize practice Chinese medicine, Wu expressed the hope that the incident would not hurt Taiwanese expatriates in Belize and that it would not affect Taiwan’s image in the country.
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,