Popular variety show host Hu Gua (胡瓜) was indicted yesterday for installing cameras at his residence to cheat other gamblers.
"Hu Gua, his brother Hu Chi-hsuan (
Lin said the four made NT$15,200,000 (US$472,880) in illegal profits.
Prosecutors said Hu Gua had used a luxury apartment on Dunhua South Road as a private mahjong casino.
In 2003, Hu's elder brother Hu Chi-hsuan asked his friend Hsu to install four hidden cameras in the apartment's ceiling.
During mahjong games, Hsu used the cameras to monitor players' tiles from a back room and used wireless radio to tell Hu Chi-hsuan what he saw. In this way, Hu Chi-hsuan was able to win almost every game, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said that Hu Gua knew what was going on, and was involved.
When Tien, a frequent gambler at the apartment, discovered that she had been cheated, she asked Hu Gua to compensate her. Instead, he agreed to let her share in the spoils.
High-society dame Chen Jing-jing's (
She suspected she had been cheated and asked Hu Gua to return her money, but he refused.
Chen and her mother subsequently filed a lawsuit against Hu last November.
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