Lee Bi-chun (李碧君), a key figure in the embezzlement allegations surrounding the first family, has been banned from leaving the country, a prosecutor said yesterday.
"Lee will be subpoenaed later, and the order restricting her from leaving the country is a measure to make sure future investigations proceed smoothly," said Eric Chen (陳瑞仁), a prosecutor at the Black Gold Investigation Center of the Taiwan High Court Prosecutors' Office.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chiu Yi (邱毅) has accused first lady Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍) of pocketing cash through reimbursements from fake expenditures, using receipts provided by Lee, a close friend of the first lady.
Chiu Yi said that some of the receipts Lee Bi-chun gave to Wu were from Lee Bi-chun's cousin, Ligi Lee (李慧芬), a Taiwanese fashion designer based in Australia, saying that the receipts were issued by the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Taipei.
The Chinese-language newspaper the United Daily News yesterday reported that Ligi Lee planned to return to Taiwan from Australia next week with documents proving that she had offered some receipts to Lee Bi-chun and the first lady.
"I will hold a press conference to declare that I have offered receipts for more than NT$7 million (US$213,000) to be reimbursed from the fund," the newspaper quoted Ligi Lee as saying.
Chen yesterday said that prosecutors would interview Ligi Lee if she were to return to the country.
Apart from the receipts from the Hyatt, Chiu also claimed that Lee Bi-chun had provided some receipts that had been issued by the Ambassador Hotel and Sogo Department Store, among others.
Ministry of Audit Spokesman Wang Yung-hsing (王永興) said the ministry had found that some copies of the receipts Chiu submitted to the ministry had been used to reimburse expenditures from the fund, and the ministry had sent these documents to the prosecutors.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
BREACH OF CONTRACT: The bus operators would seek compensation and have demanded that the manufacturer replace the chips with ones that meet regulations Two bus operators found to be using buses with China-made chips are to demand that the original manufacturers replace the systems and provide compensation for breach of contract, the Veterans Affairs Council said yesterday. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) yesterday said that Da Nan Bus Co and Shin-Shin Bus Co Ltd have fielded a total of 82 buses that are using Chinese chips. The bus models were made by Tron-E, while the systems provider was CYE Electronics, Lin said. Lin alleged that the buses were using chips manufactured by Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon Co, which presents a national security risk if the
The National Immigration Agency has banned two Chinese from returning to Taiwan, after they published social media content it described as disrespectful to national sovereignty. The agency imposed a two-month ban on a Chinese man surnamed Liang (梁) and a permanent ban on a woman surnamed Yang (楊), an influencer with 23 million followers, in October last year and last week respectively. Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) yesterday said on the sidelines of a legislative meeting that Chinese visitors to Taiwan are required to comply with the rules and regulations governing their entry permits. The government has handled the ban and
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