Prosecutors yesterday questioned former presidential adviser Wu Li-pei (吳澧培) as a witness to learn details about money wired to him by former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), who is under investigation for alleged money laundering.
On Wednesday, Chen said he had donated US$1.91 million to “someone of great seniority” to be used to promote Taiwan’s diplomatic relations.
In an interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) on Thursday, Wu said that Chen contacted him in February and said he was willing to provide capital “to help do something toward the expansion of Taiwan’s diplomatic relations.”
Wu said he then gave Chen four bank account numbers, under two different names with two accounts each. None of the accounts were in Wu’s name, but Wu said he had access to the accounts.
Chen Yun-nan (陳雲南), spokesman for the Special Investigation Panel of the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office, said yesterday that the prosecutors had interviewed Wu to learn more about the matter.
“Since the timing of the transfer is close to when the former head of the Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau Yeh Sheng-mao (葉盛茂) allegedly leaked information to Chen on the money-laundering investigation, prosecutors would like to learn the origin of the funds and the transfer,” Chen Yun-nan said.
Yeh stands accused of covering up and warning the former president that a foreign anti-money laundering organization was investigating alleged money-laundering by his family.
During the questioning yesterday, Chen Yun-nan said that Wu was very cooperative and authorized the prosecutors to investigate the four overseas accounts.
Wu, a long-time independence advocate, said in the interview with the Liberty Times that he and the former president met at Chen’s official residence on Feb. 3. Wu said the former president told him he wanted to build a network of people friendly to Taiwan or to facilitate future foreign visits. Wu said he was very moved by this gesture and therefore agreed to do what he had been asked.
Wu said he received information from an overseas bank on Feb. 22 saying that US$1.91 million had been deposited.
The former president was implicated when the Next Magazine weekly reported on Aug. 13 that the former first family had transferred large sums of money abroad and might be engaged in money laundering.
The former president admitted the following day that his wife had wired family funds abroad without his knowledge, but insisted that all the money was clean.
Chen Shui-bian said the money was the remaining balance from political contributions for his two mayoral and two presidential bids between 1993 and 2004.
Chen Shui-bian is also under investigation for alleged embezzlement of public funds by using other people’s receipts for reimbursements from his “state affairs fund.” He said he is his innocent and said that he didn’t use a dime from the discretionary “state affairs fund” to line his own pocket.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY CNA
A fugitive in a suspected cosmetic surgery fraud case today returned to Taiwan from Canada, after being wanted for six years. Internet celebrity Su Chen-tuan (蘇陳端), known as Lady Nai Nai (貴婦奈奈), and her former boyfriend, plastic surgeon Paul Huang (黃博健), allegedly defrauded clients and friends of about NT$1 billion (US$30.66 million). Su was put on a wanted list in 2019 when she lived in Toronto, Canada, after failing to respond to subpoenas and arrest warrants from the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office. Su arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport at 5am today on an EVA Air flight accompanied by a
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
Restarting the No. 2 reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant would take up to 18 months, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said today. Kuo was answering questions during a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Economics Committee, where legislators are considering amendments to the Renewable Energy Development Act (再生能源發展條) amid concerns about the consequences of the Pingtung County reactor’s decommissioning scheduled for May 17. Its decommissioning is to mark the end of Taiwan’s nuclear power production. However, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers have proposed an amendment to the Nuclear Reactor Facilities Regulation Act (核子反應器設施管制法) that would extend the life of existing
RSS