Five people were detained in an operation targeting an organization that allegedly produced counterfeit Triple Stimulus Vouchers, police in Yunlin County said yesterday.
Raids at several locations in the county on Thursday uncovered a production center and warehouses after business owners had reported receiving fake vouchers in the past few weeks, police officials told a news conference.
Su Ching-wu (蘇慶梧), 70, is suspected to be the head of the counterfeit operation, police said, adding that he and a man surnamed Chang (張), who they suspect also had some control over the operation, were kept in custody, as the likelihood is high that they would flee, collude over testimony or tamper with evidence.
Photo: Huang Shu-li, Taipei Times
Two other suspects were released without bail, and another suspect, a woman surnamed Chang (張), was released after posting bail of NT$50,000 (US$1,693), police said.
Officers seized color laser-jet printers and set-design molds, as well as engraving, stamping and precision paper trimming tools, they said.
Officers found 1,094 counterfeit vouchers with NT$500 face values, as well as 798 unfinished vouchers, with the total value of both sets being NT$2.5 million, they said.
Photo: Huang Shu-li, Taipei Times
They also found stacks of fake NT$100 bills, they said.
Yunlin Prosecutor Chu Chi-jen (朱啟仁) said that business owners in Huwei Township (虎尾) at the end of last month reported people making purchases with fake vouchers and alerted the police.
Su has a criminal record of counterfeiting and has been linked to about 20 cases over the past few decades, serving several prison terms, Chu said.
He finished his most recent jail term in 2018, Chu said.
Police officials said that Su’s latest operation has been shut down and only a few forged vouchers were used.
The government’s Triple Stimulus Voucher program aimed to revitalize the economy amid the COVID-19 pandemic, with Taiwanese and foreign spouses of Taiwanese eligible to buy NT$3,000 of vouchers for NT$1,000.
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
NEW LOW: The council in 2024 based predictions on a pessimistic estimate for the nation’s total fertility rate of 0.84, but last year that rate was 0.69, 17 percent lower An expected National Development Council (NDC) report expects the nation’s population to drop below 12 million by 2065, with the old-age dependency ratio to top 100 percent sooner than 2070, sources said yesterday. The council is slated to release its latest population projections in August, using an ultra-low fertility model, the sources said. The previous report projected that Taiwan’s population would fall to 14.37 million by 2070, but based on a new estimate of the total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — the population is expected to reach 12 million by
RSS