An increasing number of fraud cases involved the Internet this year, Minister of the Interior Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) said yesterday at an inter-agency meeting on anti-fraud strategies.
“The number of fraudulent telephone calls reported from January to last month decreased by 16.37 percent compared with the same period last year,” Jiang said. “However, cases of fraud committed via the Internet rose by 16.34 percent from January to last month compared with last year.”
Telephone and Internet fraud are ranked second and third respectively on a list of top 10 complaints compiled by an online poll conducted by the Research, Development and Evaluation Commission last month.
While the drop in telephone fraud shows that the government’s anti-fraud campaign has been effective, the increased use of the Internet in crime was worrisome, since “it may be harder to catch offenders if the fraud is committed via the Internet,” the minister said.
Cross-strait collaboration on prosecuting fraudulent organizations was a key task because many such organizations are based in China, he said.
“Since cross-strait anti-fraud collaboration began in June, we’ve cracked down on seven such organizations, arresting 210 people, of whom 147 are Taiwanese and 63 Chinese,” he said.
A National Police Agency official highlighted a case last month in which Taiwanese and Chinese authorities arrested 17 individuals allegedly belonging to a fraud ring in a coordinated move in Taiwan and Fujian Province.
“Cross-border criminal activities are increasing. We urge the public to not hesitate to dial the 165 anti-fraud hotline or report to the nearest police station whenever they receive a suspicious call or e-mail or discover suspicious Internet sites,” Jiang said. “Please help us crack down on fraud by submitting tips.”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) today issued a sea warning for Typhoon Fung-wong effective from 5:30pm, while local governments canceled school and work for tomorrow. A land warning is expected to be issued tomorrow morning before it is expected to make landfall on Wednesday, the agency said. Taoyuan, and well as Yilan, Hualien and Penghu counties canceled work and school for tomorrow, as well as mountainous district of Taipei and New Taipei City. For updated information on closures, please visit the Directorate-General of Personnel Administration Web site. As of 5pm today, Fung-wong was about 490km south-southwest of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan's southernmost point.
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Almost a quarter of volunteer soldiers who signed up from 2021 to last year have sought early discharge, the Legislative Yuan’s Budget Center said in a report. The report said that 12,884 of 52,674 people who volunteered in the period had sought an early exit from the military, returning NT$895.96 million (US$28.86 million) to the government. In 2021, there was a 105.34 percent rise in the volunteer recruitment rate, but the number has steadily declined since then, missing recruitment targets, the Chinese-language United Daily News said, citing the report. In 2021, only 521 volunteers dropped out of the military, the report said, citing
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