Declassified files of the Taiwan Garrison Command from more than three decades ago showed that known members of the Bamboo Union gang held important positions in ministries, as well as the military, police and intelligence services, the Chinese-language Mirror Media magazine reported yesterday.
“From the early 1960s on, the KMT government knew about and implicitly permitted members of Bamboo Union and other organized crime gangs to take up jobs in Taiwan’s law-enforcement agencies and secret services, including Taiwan’s top intelligence agency, the National Security Bureau [NSB], all branches of the armed forces and the Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau [MJIB],” the magazine said.
The documents listed gang members, with a man surnamed Huang (黃) being listed as the NSB’s official representative to the US, while another NSB officer surnamed Hsu (徐) was named as the bureau’s representative to Singapore, along with many others who were shown to have immigrated to the US in the 1960s.
The gang members also entered other sectors and took up executive positions at financial and construction companies and government media outlets, such as the Central News Agency, as well as movie production companies, newspapers and other mass broadcasting firms, the report said.
“Starting in 1960, 13 Bamboo Union members entered academies for the army, air force and navy. Also six known gang members held jobs at the MJIB ... later becoming the basis of an intimate working relationship between the KMT government and criminal gangs,” it said.
The report sparked discussion online.
“Is this not an open secret in Taiwan?” an Internet user asked. “Now we have the documents to prove the links between the KMT and criminal gangs.”
Another wrote: “This is not a surprise, we have known all along of the close connections between the KMT and gangsters.”
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