Prosecutors yesterday questioned former China Development Financial Holding Corp president Angelo Koo (辜仲瑩) over allegations that he helped former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and his family launder and hide money.
The Supreme Prosecutors’ Office Special Investigation Panel (SIP) is maintaining a tight schedule for the questioning of witnesses and defendants in efforts to conclude its investigations into the Chen family. The panel yesterday questioned Koo on money transfers he allegedly helped make for members of the former first family.
Koo and China Development Financial chief financial officer Sherie Chiu (邱德馨), both of whom have been named as defendants in the money-laundering investigation, are suspected of helping former first lady Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍) transfer US$600,000 and NT$34 million (US$1 million) from a Taiwanese account in the name of Wu’s elder brother Wu Ching-mao (吳景茂) to the family’s accounts in Singapore and the Netherlands between 2003 and 2005.
In 2004, Wu Shu-jen allegedly gave Koo US$1 million and asked him to transfer the money to foreign accounts in the names of Wu Ching-mao and her son, Chen Chih-chung’s (陳致中), prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said several businesspeople involved in the case might not be charged with bribery because of the difficulty of gathering evidence. However, these individuals are less likely to avoid money-laundering charges because prosecutors have amassed a wealth of evidence including bank transfer records.
Prosecutors listed other defendants who may be facing indictments soon, including Wu Shu-jen, Wu Ching-mao and his wife, Chen Chun-ying (陳俊英), former China Steel Corp chairman Lin Wen-yuan (林文淵), Yuanta Financial Holding Co president Victor Ma (馬維建), former Yuanta Securities Corp board member Tu Li-ping (杜麗萍) and chairwoman Judy Tu (杜麗莊), as well as Chen Shui-bian’s son, Chen Chih-chung (陳致中), and daughter-in-law, Huang Jui-ching (黃睿靚).
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
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
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