Chiayi County authorities yesterday said that they have detained eight people for questioning, including three executives from Chunghwa Telecom’s Chiayi branch, over allegations of fraud of NT$35.18 million (US$1.19 million).
Prosecutors and officers from the Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau raided seven locations on Wednesday.
After questioning, the eight people were listed as suspects and face charges of forging or altering private documents, as well as breaching the Business Entity Accounting Act (商業會計法) and the Securities Exchange Act (證券交易法), Chiayi prosecutor Hou Te-jen (侯德人) said.
The three Chunghwa Telecom executives allegedly met a businessman surnamed Liao (廖) in 2016, who introduced them to another businessman surnamed Chen (陳), who ran two other companies that were used in the scheme, Hou said.
The trio allegedly arranged three deals to purchase steel products worth a total of NT$35.18 million, Hou said, adding that the invoices and receipts were forged, and no actual steel products changed hands.
The steel products were then “re-sold” to a company controlled by Chen in another phoney transaction using forged documents, Hou said.
Although prosecutors applied to detain Liao and two executives — one surnamed Lin (林) and one surnamed Huang (黃) — the bail court judge released them with the other five suspects on Friday.
As Taiwan’s largest telecommunications conglomerate, Chunghwa Telecom was controlled by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications before the sector was deregulated and privatized in the 1990s. While it is now listed on the TAIEX, the ministry still owns 35.29 percent of the company’s shares.
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