Almost three weeks after Taiwanese businessman Steven Chen (陳朝慶) went missing in Indonesia, his whereabouts still remain a mystery, foreign ministry officials and Chen's Indonesian counterpart said.
"As of this morning, we haven't heard any news from our representative office in Indonesia nor the Indonesian police," said a foreign ministry official, who refused to be named.
Chen, who works at Taiwan's Lifong Manpower Co (
Chen's wife, Huang Yu-ling (
Andy Ng, a consultant at the Indonesian company, said yesterday evening that Huang's accusations were groundless. "We did not kidnap Chen. What has been reported in the media is not true," Ng said.
Ng said his company staffers bumped into Chen in a hotel "by accident" on Nov. 15, quoting Chen as saying that he was in Indonesia "for some business with other people, but not with your company."
Ng said then his company staffers requested Chen settle the debt between the two firms, and asked Chen to tell them the whereabouts of three Indonesian migrant workers who went to work in Taiwan under arrangement by the two firms.
Ng claimed that Chen had only settled part of the debt with his firm before going missing.
Huang, however, said her husband had reached her by phone on Nov. 17 claiming that he had been "kidnapped" by the Indonesian firm, and she has been unable to contact him ever since. She said Chen went to Indonesia to ask the firm to pay back their debt, but the Indonesian firm's employees simply kidnapped her husband.
Foreign ministry officials said Taipei's Economic and Trade Office in Jakarta had been informed of the incident, and is urging Indonesian police to help locate the missing man.
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