Police have arrested 449 people in raids related to two major local porn networks, with suspects facing charges such as allegedly possessing sexual material of minors and filming women in public restrooms without their knowledge, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said yesterday.
It took a lot of coordination and resources over the past two months for law enforcement authorities to investigate the two forums, Chuangyi Sifang (創意私房) and SCP, operating on the encrypted messaging platform Telegram, CIB High-tech Crime Center chief Lin Chien-lung (林建隆) told a news conference in Taipei.
The investigation is ongoing, and the 449 suspects are facing charges related to breaches of the Child and Youth Sexual Exploitation Prevention Act (兒童及少年性剝削防制條例), money laundering and engaging in organized crime, Lin said.
Photo: CNA
Membership fees for the two networks were paid in cryptocurrency and network tokens, with transactions handled by overseas accounts and domains, making it more difficult to shut them down, he said.
Law enforcement authorities initially focused on Chuangyi Sifang following the indictment of entertainer and television host Mickey Huang (黃子佼) in May for allegedly possessing sexually explicit videos involving minors and investigators. Huang had allegedly been a paid member of the network since 2014, the Taichung Prosecutors’ Office said.
Taichung prosecutors led the investigation and after raids started in June they found out it was the nation’s largest platform for exchanging illegal pornography, including a large amount of child pornography, it said.
Police arrested a man surnamed Chang (張), who allegedly managed Chuangyi Sifang forum in Taiwan on behalf of the owner, a man known as Lao Ma (老馬), thought to be a Chinese citizen based in China, it said.
Police also arrested Chang’s assistants, information technology (IT) technicians who edited videos and some customers, while confiscating New Taiwan dollars, Hong Kong dollars and yuan totaling about NT$1 million (US$30,454) as that was alleged to have come from selling illegal pornography, it said.
In another wave of raids that started early last month, prosecutors targeted the SCP forum and the OAT site affiliated with it, which allegedly secretly recorded women in restrooms at restaurants, bars and public places, Lin said.
Further raids took place on July 16 and 17, and 350 officers from 64 police precincts across 17 administrative regions participated and searched more than 250 locations, he said.
Authorities confiscated computers, mobile phones, financial records and cash, he said.
The majority of the suspects are allegedly paid members of the networks, Lin said, adding that they are suspected of viewing and trading illegal pornography, as well as uploading content.
The suspects include some teachers, IT professionals and those working in high tech sectors, military personnel and others, he added.
Although the networks were registered overseas, they operated in and were managed from Taiwan, prosecutors said.
Additional reporting by CNA
RESILIENCE: Deepening bilateral cooperation would extend the peace sustained over the 45 years since the Taiwan Relations Act, Greene said Taiwan-US relations are built on deep economic ties and shared values, American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Director Raymond Greene said yesterday, adding that strengthening supply chain security in critical industries, enhancing societal resilience through cooperation and deepening partnerships are key to ensuring peace and stability for Taiwan in the years ahead. Greene made the remarks at the National Security Youth Forum, organized by National Taiwan University’s National Security and Strategy Studies Institution in Taipei. In his address in Mandarin Chinese, Greene said the Taiwan-US relationship is built on deep economic ties and shared interests, and grows stronger through the enduring friendship between
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),
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
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,