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.
Yangmingshan National Park authorities yesterday urged visitors to respect public spaces and obey the law after a couple was caught on a camera livestream having sex at the park’s Qingtiangang (擎天崗) earlier in the day. The Shilin Police Precinct in Taipei said it has identified a suspect and his vehicle registration number, and would summon him for questioning. The case would be handled in accordance with public indecency charges, it added. The couple entered the park at about 11pm on Thursday and began fooling around by 1am yesterday, the police said, adding that the two were unaware of the park’s all-day live
Fast food chain McDonald's is to raise prices by up to NT$5 on some products at its restaurants across Taiwan, starting on Wednesday next week, the company announced today. The prices of all extra value meals and sharing boxes are to increase by NT$5, while breakfast combos and creamy corn soup would go up by NT$3, the company said in a statement. The price of the main items of those meals, if ordered individually, would remain the same. Meanwhile, the price of a medium-sized lemon iced tea and hot cappuccino would rise by NT$3, extra dipping sauces for chicken nuggets would go up
Yangmingshan National Park’s Qingtiangang (擎天崗) nature area has gone viral after a park livestream camera observed a couple in the throes of intimate congress, which was broadcast live on YouTube, drawing large late-night crowds and sparking a backlash over noise, bright lights and disruption to wildlife habitat. The area’s livestream footage appeared to show a couple engaging in sexual activity on a picnic table in the park on Friday last week, with the uncensored footage streamed publicly online. The footage quickly spread across social media, prompting a tide of visitors to travel to the site to “check in” and recreate the
Minister of Digital Affairs Lin Yi-ching (林宜敬) yesterday cited regulatory issues and national security concerns as an expert said that Taiwan is among the few Asian regions without Starlink. Lin made the remarks on Facebook after funP Innovation Group chief executive officer Nathan Chiu (邱繼弘) on Friday said Taiwan and four other countries in Asia — China, North Korea, Afghanistan and Syria — have no access to Starlink. Starlink has become available in 166 countries worldwide, including Ukraine, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, in the six years since it became commercial, he said. While China and North Korea block Starlink, Syria is not
RSS