KMT legislator Lo Ming-tsai (
"Hundreds of SWAT team officers surrounded my residence," he said, addressing Minister of Justice Chen Ding-nan (
Lo was referring to the raid on the family's home in Hsintien.
"Do prosecutors usually do this to a person who is charged with fraud, breach of trust and usury? Is this normal? Well, I don't think so. Their actions also scared my grandmother and aggravated her ill health," he said.
Chen replied that prosecutors were just doing their job and the process was totally legal.
"The prosecutors had a search warrant issued by the Taipei District Court when they carried out the raids on Monday and Tuesday," Chen said.
"I am sorry if the raid disturbed members of Lo's family. It's my understanding that our officials were very polite and tried to be as quiet as possible. A man at the scene, however, who claimed to be a lawyer, yelled and was rude. I think this man was the one who scared Lo's grandmother and was the person whom Lo should blame," Chen said.
Video footage of the raid which has been broadcast by television stations, clearly shows a man resembling Lo Fu-chu's lawyer, Chuang Hsiu-ming (莊秀銘), shouting to prosecutors, "I represent the Lo family and this raid is illegal."
Prosecutors from the Taiwan High Court Prosecutors' Office and police raided the Lo family's 11 offices and residences in Taipei City, Taipei County and Taichung City in search of new evidence to support charges of fraud, breach of trust and usury against the elder Lo.
Spokesman for the Taiwan High Court Prosecutors' Office, Shih Liang-Po (施良波) told the Taipei Times yesterday, "We received a tip-off that Lo has something in his possession which will support the charges against him."
He added, "We found an important notebook containing Lo's financial records at the Hsintien home."
Lo Ming-tsai, formerly a member of the legislative Finance Committee, joined the Judicial Committee -- which his father once headed -- after the inauguration of the new legislature on Feb 1.
The senior Lo was charged with several offenses last October in connection with the alleged embezzlement of funds from his former company, Tashin Securities (
He is also awaiting trial on separate assault and attempted extortion charges.
An alleged US government plan to encourage Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) to form a joint venture with Intel to boost US chipmaking would place the Taiwanese foundry giant in a more disadvantageous position than proposed tariffs on imported chips, a semiconductor expert said yesterday. If TSMC forms a joint venture with its US rival, it faces the risk of technology outflow, said Liu Pei-chen (劉佩真), a researcher at the Taiwan Industry Economics Database of the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research. A report by international financial services firm Baird said that Asia semiconductor supply chain talks suggest that the US government would
Starlux Airlines on Tuesday announced it is to launch new direct flights from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport to Ontario, California, on June 2. The carrier said it plans to deploy the new-generation Airbus A350 on the Taipei-Ontario route. The Airbus A350 features a total of 306 seats, including four in first class, 26 in business class, 36 in premium economy and 240 in economy. According to Starlux’s initial schedule, four flights would run between Taoyuan and Ontario per week: Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Flights are to depart from Taoyuan at 8:05pm and arrive in California at 5:05pm (local time), while return flights
Nearly 800 Indian tourists are to arrive this week on an incentive tour organized by Indian company Asian Painted Ltd, making it the largest tour group from the South Asian nation to visit since the COVID-19 pandemic. The travelers are scheduled to arrive in six batches from Sunday to Feb. 25 for five-day tours, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. The tour would take the travelers, most of whom are visiting Taiwan for the first time, to several tourist sites in Taipei and Yilan County, including tea houses in Taipei’s Maokong (貓空), Dadaocheng (大稻埕) and Ximending (西門町) areas. They would also visit
LITTORAL REGIMENTS: The US Marine Corps is transitioning to an ‘island hopping’ strategy to counterattack Beijing’s area denial strategy The US Marine Corps (USMC) has introduced new anti-drone systems to bolster air defense in the Pacific island chain amid growing Chinese military influence in the region, The Telegraph reported on Sunday. The new Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) Mk 1 is being developed to counter “the growing menace of unmanned aerial systems,” it cited the Marine Corps as saying. China has constructed a powerful defense mechanism in the Pacific Ocean west of the first island chain by deploying weapons such as rockets, submarines and anti-ship missiles — which is part of its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy against adversaries — the