The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday charged Xiang Xin (向心), a suspected Chinese intelligence officer, and his wife, Kung Ching (龔青), with money laundering and breaches of the National Security Act (國家安全法) in a case related to self-professed Chinese spy William Wang Liqiang (王立強).
Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) spokesman Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said that the council respects the judiciary, declining to comment on an individual case.
The Chinese government has been using Taiwan’s democracy and freedoms to infiltrate society, Chiu said, adding that the government must tighten laws when necessary.
Photo: Chien Li-chung, Taipei Times
It is the first formal indictment of Xiang and Kung, who were stopped at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport on Nov. 24, 2019, when attempting to flee on an outbound flight, one day after Australian media aired interviews with Wang.
Wang told reporters that he had conducted espionage in Taiwan, saying that Xiang was China’s spy directing espionage activities, intelligence gathering and covert operations in Taiwan and Hong Kong.
The couple had registered China Innovation Investment Ltd (中國創新投資) in Taipei, with Xiang as executive director and Kung as acting director, prosecutors said, adding that they invested in real estate, purchasing three luxury condominium units in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義).
Over the past decade, the couple had illegally transferred about NT$740 million (US$26.03 million at the current exchange rate), mainly from the Shanghai-based Guotai Investment Holding Group (國太投資), prosecutors said.
In 2018, a Shanghai court sentenced Guotai Investment executives to prison for terms ranging from 12 years to life after they were found guilty of earning 40 billion yuan (US$6.11 billion at the current exchange rate) from illegal investment schemes. The business was dissolved.
Yesterday’s indictment said that Xiang and Kung laundered money for Guotai Investment executives.
The money first went to a Hong Kong company owned by the couple, before being transferred to China Innovation Investment in Taiwan.
In addition to breaches of national security, the couple was charged with breaches of the Money Laundering Control Act (洗錢防制法).
Prosecutors have filed to confiscate the couple’s condominiums.
An investigation is ongoing into their alleged espionage activities and intelligence gathering for China.
Prosecutors said that the Australian government is cooperating with the investigation into Wang’s allegations against Xiang.
After the indictment was announced, the couple released a statement, in which they denied all of the charges.
Additional reporting by Chen Yu-fu
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
GAINING STEAM: The scheme initially failed to gather much attention, with only 188 cards issued in its first year, but gained popularity amid the COVID-19 pandemic Applications for the Employment Gold Card have increased in the past few years, with the card having been issued to a total of 13,191 people from 101 countries since its introduction in 2018, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Those who have received the card have included celebrities, such as former NBA star Dwight Howard and Australian-South Korean cheerleader Dahye Lee, the NDC said. The four-in-one Employment Gold Card combines a work permit, resident visa, Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) and re-entry permit. It was first introduced in February 2018 through the Act Governing Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及雇用法),
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
RSS