Television entertainer Dee Hsu (徐熙娣), better known as Little S (小S), was questioned by the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday as a witness in the Top Pot Bakery scandal, as well as over another case allegedly implicating her husband and father-in-law in insider trading.
The Top Pot Bakery chain — which Hsu had endorsed and in which Hsu’s husband, Mike Xu (許雅鈞), held shares — caused public anger in late August when it admitted that it has been using artificial flavoring in products it advertised as “all-natural.”
While the prosecutors investigated the Top Pot Bakery on suspicion of fraud, they discovered that its parent company, Genome International, allegedly violated the insider-trading clause of the Securities Exchange Act (證券交易法).
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
Further investigation into the issue by the office found that Genome International chairman Hsu Hsun-ping (徐洵平), supervisor Chiang Lee-fen (姜麗芬), chief financial officer Huang Hsiao-ling (黃筱玲), as well as Xu and his father, Xu Ching-hsiang (許慶祥), had allegedly sold company stock that they owned — a total of 1,500,000 shares — at a point when the company’s stock price was at a high of NT$100 per share, before the company released a statement that it was doing poorly and the share price dropped.
The five suspects are said to have avoided financial losses totaling nearly NT$60 million (US$2 million) by allegedly selling their shares before the statement was released.
Following questioning by prosecutors last week, Hsu Hsun-ping (徐洵平) was released on NT$5 million bail and Xu on NT$2 million bail, while Xu’s father and Chiang posted NT$3 million bail each, and Huang posted NT$200,000 bail.
Dee Hsu, who is often seen in advertisements endorsing various products, was questioned yesterday for about 90 minutes.
When she left the prosecutors’ office at 12:15pm, Dee Hsu looked slightly stressed and appeared to have tears in her eyes.
In response to reporters’ questions, she only said that she thanked everyone for their support.
UPGRADE: The Kang Ding-class frigate is replacing its Chaparall missiles with Tien Chien II and Hua Yang VLS, which would provide it with long-range, 360° air defense Taiwan plans to produce 1,200 to 1,376 Hai Chien II missiles (海劍二, Sea Sword II) — also known as TC-2N — to serve as the standard air defense system of the navy’s surface combatant fleet, a source said yesterday. Last week, the Hai Chien II, the naval version of the Tien Kung II missile (天劍二, Sky Sword II), completed a live-fire test in waters off the National Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology’s Jiupeng facility (九鵬) in Pingtung County’s Manjhou Township (滿州). The MIM72 Chaparral and other dated air defense missiles that currently arm Taiwanese ships have inadequate range to combat Chinese
REASONS FOR TRAVEL: An assistant professor said that proposed amendments to penalize drivers if they used drugs overseas would not deter people from traveling People who operate a motor vehicle under the influence of marijuana would have their driver’s license revoked, even if they used the substance while overseas, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said yesterday, citing proposed amendments to the Road Traffic Management and Penalty Act (道路交通管理處罰條例). The amendments would also authorize the government to revoke the licenses of people determined to have used Category 1 or Category 2 narcotics, even if they were not operating a vehicle while under the influence of drugs, as well as ban them from taking the license test for three years, the ministry said. People aged 18 or
GLOBALGIVING: ‘ Caving to external pressure is not acceptable for an organization that has cultivated justice reform and human rights for 30 years,’ one NGO said A slew of non-government organizations (NGOs) have withdrawn from the GlobalGiving fundraising platform after it announced it would use “Chinese Taipei” instead of “Taiwan” from next month. The Taiwan Good Rice Association wrote on Facebook on Friday that it was informed on April 28 via a teleconference call of the change, which was made because the platform wanted to operate in China. Taiwan Good Rice is to terminate all cooperative relationships with GlobalGiving in response to the platform’s “unilateral and non-negotiable” decision to remove references to Taiwan, the NGO said. “Taiwan is in the official name of Taiwan Good Rice Association and the
HEAVY WEATHER: Typhoon Jangmi is due to crash straight into the Ryukyus as airlines look to shift flights to larger aircraft or cancel flights to Okinawa entirely Taiwan’s international air carriers announced flight adjustments over the weekend as Typhoon Jangmi is forecast to hit the Ryukyu Islands today and tomorrow. The Central Weather Administration (CWA) upgraded Jangmi from a tropical storm to a typhoon at 8am yesterday, with the eye located 580km south of Naha city. It was moving north at 19kph. Today, China Airlines’ CI-120, CI-121, CI-122 and CI-123 flights between Taoyuan and Naha, Okinawa, have been canceled as well as CI-132 and CI-133 between Kaohsiung and Naha. EVA Air’s BR-112, BR-113, BR-186 and BR-185 flights between Taoyuan and Naha are also canceled. Low-cost carrier Tigerair Taiwan canceled IT-230,
RSS