Wu Shih-tsai (吳思材), a key suspect in the Papua New Guinea diplomatic fraud scandal, will be indicted soon, Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office Spokesman Lin Jinn-tsun (林錦村) said yesterday.
“Prosecutors still need some time to figure out where the stolen money — NT$1 billion [US$33 million] — is. But we will wrap up our investigation and indict Wu in the near future,” Lin said.
Lin said Chief Prosecutor Huang Mo-hsin (黃謀信), who is in charge of the investigation, had received a report from Singaporean prosecutors who investigated eight bank accounts belonging to Ching Chi-ju (金紀玖), the other main suspect. Singaporean prosecutors said they had found no evidence that any money from the eight accounts had been wired to Taiwanese officials.
The Singaporean report said that a total of US$19.8 million was deposited in the accounts and that Ching wired money from the accounts to Taiwan to buy real estate, cars and other investments, but he had never wired money to any Taiwanese officials.
Lin said prosecutors are also trying to determine if the case was linked to the money-laundering scandal enveloping former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
The fraud case surfaced in May when a Singaporean newspaper reported that the Singapore High Court had approved Taiwan’s application for an injunction to freeze a joint bank account held by Ching and Wu.
In August 2006, the 56-year-old Wu, a Singaporean, and Ching were commissioned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and then-National Security Council (NSC) secretary-general Chiou I-jen (邱義仁) to act as intermediaries in an attempt to forge diplomatic relations with Papua New Guinea.
The ministry later agreed to wire US$30 million into Wu and Ching’s account at the OCBC Bank in Singapore to be transferred to the Papua New Guinea government after both countries had signed a diplomatic communique.
However, the two countries failed to form official ties and in December 2006 the ministry asked for its money back. Ching allegedly refused to return the funds and has since disappeared.
Chiou, former minister of foreign affairs James Huang (黃志芳) and former deputy minister of national defense Ko Cheng-heng (柯承亨) all resigned over their involvement in the plan.
Ching, who is a US citizen, is believed to be in the US, while Wu is in custody in Taiwan.
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