Six active and retired officers from Taipei’s Zhongzheng First Precinct have been detained on suspicion of taking bribes to cover up illegal sex industry activities, the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said yesterday.
Officers Wu I-ming (吳翊銘), Yan Tzu-en (顏子恩), Hou Chao-pin (侯朝斌), Tseng Chi-hsun (曾紀勳) and Yang Chih-ching (楊智清) and retired officer Ma Kuo-tung (馬國棟) are being investigated, but all deny the charges, prosecutors said, adding that the Taipei District Court authorized their arrest yesterday.
The officers’s statements were inconsistent with one given by the proprietor of a hostess bar that has been linked to the case, the court said.
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
Investigators are in touch with one witness who is to appear in court, they said, adding that they are not ruling out identifying more suspects.
Initial investigations found evidence that the six officers and the hostess bar proprietor appeared to have a relationship of “great mutual benefit,” they said.
All six officers had some connection with Zhongzheng First Precinct, but four of them are now stationed elsewhere, including Hou, who is a sergeant at the Dali Street Police Station in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華); Yan, who is a detective at Tainan’s Yongkang Precinct; Tseng, who is a sergeant at the Taipei City Police Department; and Yang, who is a police officer at Taipei’s Andong Road Police Station.
On Thursday people related to the case were questioned in the third stage of the investigations, prosecutors said, adding that several more people would be questioned after they finish studying the evidence.
The investigation began in July last year, when investigators working with the National Immigration Agency began looking into foreign women involved in the nation’s sex industry, prosecutors said.
The hostess bar proprietor, who was questioned at the time, relocated and continued operating the business under the new name “Hsiao Hsiao (曉曉),” they said, adding that the case came to the attention of the police when internal strife among investors in the hostess bar came to a head, as the business was doing poorly at its new location.
The proprietor held police at bay with bribes until the case was exposed, the office said.
The officers were allegedly paid NT$40,000 per month by head hostess Wu Hui-ling (巫蕙玲), prosecutors said, adding that payments were higher during annual holidays, such as the Lunar New Year and Dragon Boat Festival.
Wu allegedly hid the transactions by referring to police as tudigong (“earth god”) during phone calls and having well-known liquor vendor Pao Ming-pu (鮑銘璞) act as a middleman.
Investigators in March successfully applied for arrest warrants for former Zhongzheng First Precinct police chief Lin Chung-cheng (林崇成), officers Kao Chen-chieh (郜振傑), Chi Ping-chang (紀炳場) and Chen Hung-chou (陳宏洲), as well as Wu and hostess bar manager Hu Chin-lien (胡錦蓮). The Taipei District Court on May 8 approved an extension of their detention.
Several others were released on bail, including Pao, whose bail was set at NT$100,000; hostess bar accountant Yang Yu-chi (楊瑀琦), released on NT$500,000 bail; bar owner Hsieh An-fang (謝安芳), on NT$200,000 bail; and contracted accountant Huang Kuang-hsiung (黃光雄), on NT$50,000 bail.
Ten police officers and two people associated with the hostess bar were being detained as of press time last night.
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