Premier Simon Chang (張善政) has vowed to look into overseas telecommunication fraud cases involving Taiwanese suspects and Chinese victims and said that he hopes a systematic model can be established to deal with similar cases through negotiations with China, Executive Yuan spokesman Sun Lih-chyun (孫立群) said yesterday.
Chang made the remarks during an inter-ministerial meeting on how to manage similar cases after Malaysia on Friday deported 20 Taiwanese implicated in fraud to Taiwan following Kenya’s deportation of 45 Taiwanese to China over suspected telecom fraud.
There are also cases of Taiwanese suspected of transnational telecom fraud targeting Chinese victims being held by police in Indonesia, Egypt and South Korea.
Chang hopes a systematic model can be created through negotiations between Taiwan and China, Sun said.
Government agencies will send a delegation led by Ministry of Justice officials to China to discuss issues such as providing information and methodologies to facilitate investigations into such cases in the hope of improving cross-strait mechanisms for combating crime.
The small delegation — reportedly less than 10 people — is set to depart tomorrow to visit the 45 Taiwanese fraud suspects deported from Kenya and to discuss their release, Sun said.
China has claimed jurisdiction in the case because many of the victims were Chinese who reportedly lost millions of US dollars.
The justice ministry and the Ministry of the Interior’s Criminal Investigation Bureau will press China for evidence in the cases to facilitate Taiwan’s investigations, Sun said.
Chang has also asked government agencies to assess the feasibility of revising the law amid mounting calls for tougher punishment for fraud, according to Sun.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman An Fongshan (安峰山) on Saturday criticized Taiwan for releasing 20 fraud suspects a day after they were deported from Malaysia to Taiwan, citing a lack of evidence.
According to a statement on the office’s Web site, An said that Taiwan had “disregarded many victims’ interests and harmed them a second time” by releasing the suspects, and urged Taiwan to “immediately rectify its mistakes.”
Releasing the suspects harmed the years of cross-strait cooperation on criminal investigations, An said.
He also called on Taiwan to “prevent greater damage to the development of cross-strait relations.”
Additional reporting by AP
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