The Taoyuan District Court yesterday approved the detention of the controversial organization Taiwan Civil Government’s (台灣民政府) founder Roger Lin (林志昇) and placed him under restricted communication.
Prosecutors said they had applied for Lin’s detention to prevent him fleeing, colluding on his testimony or destroying evidence.
Taoyuan authorities on Thursday detained key figures of the group for questioning, after conducting raids at its headquarters and six other locations to investigate allegations of misrepresentation and fraud following complaints filed by former members.
Prosecutors yesterday said they estimated that the group had made more than NT$300 million (US$10.08 million) in illegal profits.
They also discovered illegal firearms and about NT$130 million in cash when they searched Lin’s residence, prosecutors said.
Taoyuan Deputy Chief Prosecutor Wang Yi-wen (王以文) said he intends to file charges against Lin, 67, and his wife, Lin Chih-an (林梓安), 51, of fraud, money laundering and related offenses, as well as confiscate their personal assets.
Prosecutors investigating the case described the Taiwan Civil Government as a “financial scam based on political ideology,” in which Roger Lin and group officials sold memberships and dubious investment schemes, including deceiving people about acquiring US residency status.
In Thursday’s raids, Wang said they also uncovered large quantities of jewelry, along with seven bank accounts with deposits of NT$6 million and US$520,000, and five real-estate properties, all registered under Lin Chih-an’s name.
Roger Lin did not have any property or bank account under his name, but prosecutors said he was facing NT$200 million in tax evasion charges.
Taoyuan prosecutors initiated the judicial probe after receiving complaints from 110 former group members, and conducted several months of surveillance to gather evidence prior to the raids on Thursday.
About 60 cartons of documents and related evidence were gathered in a search of the group’s headquarters in Taoyuan’s Gueishan District (龜山).
Lin and his wife and five other group officials were arrested, and nine witnesses were summoned for questioning.
South Korean K-pop girl group Blackpink are to make Kaohsiung the first stop on their Asia tour when they perform at Kaohsiung National Stadium on Oct. 18 and 19, the event organizer said yesterday. The upcoming performances will also make Blackpink the first girl group ever to perform twice at the stadium. It will be the group’s third visit to Taiwan to stage a concert. The last time Blackpink held a concert in the city was in March 2023. Their first concert in Taiwan was on March 3, 2019, at NTSU Arena (Linkou Arena). The group’s 2022-2023 “Born Pink” tour set a
CPBL players, cheerleaders and officials pose at a news conference in Taipei yesterday announcing the upcoming All-Star Game. This year’s CPBL All-Star Weekend is to be held at the Taipei Dome on July 19 and 20.
The Taiwan High Court yesterday upheld a lower court’s decision that ruled in favor of former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) regarding the legitimacy of her doctoral degree. The issue surrounding Tsai’s academic credentials was raised by former political talk show host Dennis Peng (彭文正) in a Facebook post in June 2019, when Tsai was seeking re-election. Peng has repeatedly accused Tsai of never completing her doctoral dissertation to get a doctoral degree in law from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 1984. He subsequently filed a declaratory action charging that
The Hualien Branch of the High Court today sentenced the main suspect in the 2021 fatal derailment of the Taroko Express to 12 years and six months in jail in the second trial of the suspect for his role in Taiwan’s deadliest train crash. Lee Yi-hsiang (李義祥), the driver of a crane truck that fell onto the tracks and which the the Taiwan Railways Administration's (TRA) train crashed into in an accident that killed 49 people and injured 200, was sentenced to seven years and 10 months in the first trial by the Hualien District Court in 2022. Hoa Van Hao, a
RSS