The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected an appeal from former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Tainan County council speaker Wu Chien-pao (吳健保), upholding his 10-year prison sentence for baseball match-fixing and other charges.
Wu had fled to the Philippines in 2014 after he was convicted for fixing CPBL games — as well as charges of corruption, fraud, intimidation and blackmail, and profiteering from illegal excavation — but was arrested in January last year and extradited to Taiwan with cooperation from the Philippine authorities.
The court’s ruling, which was final and cannot be appealed, upheld the High Court’s 2009 conviction.
Wu and his collaborator, Tsai Cheng-yi (蔡政宜), known as the “Windshield Wiper,” headed an underground gambling syndicate that many fans say “ruined Taiwanese baseball.”
The case, which came to light more than a decade ago, had implicated several leading CPBL figures, including players and coaches, in match-fixing and illegal betting dating back to the 1990s, and nearly caused the CPBL to fold.
New Taipei City prosecutors found that Wu and Tsai in 2006 started offering CPBL teams money, sexual services and expensive gifts to entice players to throw games. They then reaped huge profits through betting pools that Tsai ran, while Wu provided financial backing to operate the affair.
As investigation’s findings were revealed, CTBC Group terminated its ownership of the Chinatrust Whales in November 2008, and it nearly caused the La New Bears (now the Rakuten Monkeys) and Brother Elephants (now the CTBC Brothers) to disband.
Players indicted in the scandal included former Major League Baseball pitcher Tsao Chin-hui (曹錦輝), who had returned to join the Elephants, along with Elephants hitters Chen Chih-yuan (陳致遠) and Tsai Fong-an (蔡豐安), former Saitama Seibu Lions and Bears pitcher Chang Chih-chia (張誌家), and several top players of the Whales.
Wu was known as a powerful KMT politician in southern Taiwan, and as Tainan County council speaker and councilor he frequently clashed with then-Tainan mayor William Lai (賴清德) of the Democratic Progressive Party.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday said it opposes the introduction of migrant workers from India until a mechanism is in place to prevent workers from absconding. Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) on Thursday told the Legislative Yuan that the first group of migrant workers from India could be introduced as early as this year, as part of a government program. The caucus’ opposition to the policy is based on the assessment that “the risk is too high,” KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) said. Taiwan has a serious and long-standing problem of migrant workers absconding from their contracts, indicating that
SPACE VETERAN: Kjell N. Lindgren, who helps lead NASA’s human spaceflight missions, has been on two expeditions on the ISS and has spent 311 days in space Taiwan-born US astronaut Kjell N. Lindgren is to visit Taiwan to promote technological partnerships through one of the programs organized by the US for its 250th national anniversary. Lindgren would be in Taiwan from Tuesday to Saturday next week as part of the US Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ US Speaker Program, organized to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said in a statement yesterday. Lindgren plans to engage with key leaders across the nation “to advance cutting-edge technological partnerships and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers,”
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