Executives of a real-estate investment company are being investigated for persuading Taiwanese to purchase international properties that allegedly led investors to lose a total of NT$1.2 billion (US$38.96 million).
Police and Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau agents on Thursday raided the eight offices of Asia Pacific International Property Co and Web site Taiwan SouFun, an Asia Pacific affiliate, serving the executives with summons for questioning.
On Friday, Asia Pacific owner Huang Tsui-ping (黃純萍), chief operating officer Lu Wei-hsing (呂威興), executive director Chin Chi-sung (秦啟松) and overseas sales manager Chen Mei-hsuan (陳美璇), as well as Yang Chien-chieh (楊建傑) and his wife, Liao Hsiu-min (廖秀敏), who together operated Taiwan SouFun, were questioned, Taipei prosecutors said.
The executives are suspected of financial fraud and breaching the Banking Act (銀行法), the prosecutors said, adding that they would likely bring other charges as well.
On its Web site, Asia Pacific offered investments in properties in the UK, Australia, China, Malaysia and Southeast Asia.
Prosecutors said they are specifically investigating NT$1.2 billion in allegedly defrauded funds from two UK investment opportunities offered by Asia Pacific: A car park near Glasgow International Airport in Scotland and a hotel in Liverpool, England.
The two UK properties were first promoted in April 2014, with Asia Pacific offering Taiwanese a share in the car park investment for ￡20,000 (US$25,316) and a share in the hotel for ￡90,000.
Asia Pacific allegedly guaranteed an 8 percent return on the hotel shares, with investors promised returns of 24 percent over three years, while the carpark shares matured over six years, with investors promised returns of 8 percent for the first two years, 10 percent for the next two and 12 percent for the last two.
Taiwan SouFun reportedly set up a company in the UK to manage the property investments and Yang held investment seminars across Taiwan, promoting the two properties, touting the high returns and persuading Taiwanese to invest with the company.
However, some investors discovered that the UK-registered company declared bankruptcy in 2014, while Yang and other executives allegedly continued to pitch the properties and draw more investors into the scheme.
Prosecutors said they were attempting to discover where the suspects were keeping the invested funds.
Left-Handed Girl (左撇子女孩), a film by Taiwanese director Tsou Shih-ching (鄒時擎) and cowritten by Oscar-winning director Sean Baker, won the Gan Foundation Award for Distribution at the Cannes Critics’ Week on Wednesday. The award, which includes a 20,000 euro (US$22,656) prize, is intended to support the French release of a first or second feature film by a new director. According to Critics’ Week, the prize would go to the film’s French distributor, Le Pacte. "A melodrama full of twists and turns, Left-Handed Girl retraces the daily life of a single mother and her two daughters in Taipei, combining the irresistible charm of
A Philippine official has denied allegations of mistreatment of crew members during Philippine authorities’ boarding of a Taiwanese fishing vessel on Monday. Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) spokesman Nazario Briguera on Friday said that BFAR law enforcement officers “observed the proper boarding protocols” when they boarded the Taiwanese vessel Sheng Yu Feng (昇漁豐號) and towed it to Basco Port in the Philippines. Briguera’s comments came a day after the Taiwanese captain of the Sheng Yu Feng, Chen Tsung-tun (陳宗頓), held a news conference in Pingtung County and accused the Philippine authorities of mistreatment during the boarding of
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is pushing for residents of Kinmen and Lienchiang counties to acquire Chinese ID cards in a bid to “blur national identities,” a source said. The efforts are part of China’s promotion of a “Kinmen-Xiamen twin-city living sphere, including a cross-strait integration pilot zone in China’s Fujian Province,” the source said. “The CCP is already treating residents of these outlying islands as Chinese citizens. It has also intensified its ‘united front’ efforts and infiltration of those islands,” the source said. “There is increasing evidence of espionage in Kinmen, particularly of Taiwanese military personnel being recruited by the
88.2 PERCENT INCREASE: The variants driving the current outbreak are not causing more severe symptoms, but are ‘more contagious’ than previous variants, an expert said Number of COVID-19 cases in the nation is surging, with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) describing the ongoing wave of infections as “rapid and intense,” and projecting that the outbreak would continue through the end of July. A total of 19,097 outpatient and emergency visits related to COVID-19 were reported from May 11 to Saturday last week, an 88.2 percent increase from the previous week’s 10,149 visits, CDC data showed. The nearly 90 percent surge in case numbers also marks the sixth consecutive weekly increase, although the total remains below the 23,778 recorded during the same period last year,
RSS