The Ministry of Justice yesterday reported a second case in which a criminal paid a surrogate to serve his prison term -- without the authorities being aware of the switch.
The ministry said criminal Chiao Chih-kuo (
Last week it said that criminal Chen San-lung (
The embarrassed ministry said it was looking for ways to prevent the debacle from happening a third time.
"The two switches were very similar. Take Chiao's case for example: After Chiao was given his sentence, he transferred his household registration from Taipei City to Hualien County, and when the Taipei Prosecutor's Office transferred his case to the Hualien Prosecutor's Office, Chiao used the short time to have someone take a fake identify card and report to the Hualien Prosecutor's Office," Vice Minister of Justice Tang Chin-chuan (湯金全) said yesterday.
"The office was deceived by the impersonator because it lacked Chiao's documents to check up on him," he said.
Tang said Chen had transferred his household registration from Taipei City to Taoyuan County after receiving his sentence, using the same method to deceive the Taoyuan Prosecutor's Office.
He said that the Taoyuan and Hualien prosecutors as well as officials at the Taoyuan and Hualien prisons should take responsibility for the errors because they should have checked the men's identity before detaining them.
Lawyer and former Taipei prosecutor Ko Chin-chu (
The Taipei Prosecutor's Office said that Ko has been charged with concealment of an offense and destruction of evidence.
Tang said the criminals must have been aware of the procedures at the prosecutor's offices.
A ministry press statement yesterday said that Chiao, a hotel owner who hired teenagers to be prostitutes, was sentenced to three-and-a-half years' jail in June 2003.
Chiao then paid a man surnamed Huang NT$1 million to serve the prison term for him.
The ministry said that earlier this year, the Taipei District Court summoned Chiao to hear a libel charge, and he appeared in court.
But after the court checked his documents, it discovered that he should have been behind bars in Hualien.
The ministry said Chiao fled when the court discovered the switch, after which he was placed on a most-wanted list.
Chen, an owner of a well-known record company, was sentenced to 18 months' jail for fraud.
Prosecutors said that because Chen had been accused of pirating recordings by the late pop star Teresa Teng (
After several attempts at questioning, the judges discovered that Chung knew nothing about the lawsuit or Chen's company, exposing the scam.
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