Taipei prosecutors yesterday charged six executives of Lilly Real Industrial Co with financial fraud, after more than 100 people allegedly lost more than NT$600 million (US$20.78 million) to its investment schemes over the past four years.
An investigation showed that the Taipei-based company was founded in 2016 by a couple — Hsu Heng-jui (許恒瑞), 53, and Fang Hsin-yi (房欣怡), 38 — along with two other family members and a business partner, Chiang Yu-chiao (江玉嬌).
On July 17, prosecutors and police searched the company’s offices and other locations after receiving complaints from people about financial fraud, and summoned the six for questioning.
Hsu and Fang, as the main proprietors, were denied bail and have been in detention since then.
Prosecutors said that one of the investment schemes involved Hsu and Fang asking potential investors to take out a mortgage loan.
Once they have received the mortgage money, the couple would ask them to sign a five to seven-year agreement in which they would hand the money over to Lilly and earn a monthly interest rate of 1 to 3 percent, prosecutors said.
Another scheme involved Lilly acting as a loan broker, with Hsu and Fang helping people take out bank loans by providing dubious credit documents and financial papers.
Again, money from the loans were given to the firm in exchange for 1 to 3 percent in monthly interest income, prosecutors said.
The investigation found that Hsu, a former New Taipei City police officer, had used his connections with police and government agencies to attract civil servants and school teachers to the firm’s financial schemes from 2016 to April this year.
After attracting about a dozen of investors at the start, Hsu and Fang paid out interest rates of 1 to 3 percent until about 2018.
However, as more people joined up, Lilly began to default on payments, leading several disgruntled investors to file complaints.
Prosecutors said that most of the NT$600 million Lilly took in came from 15 investors, while the rest came from smaller investments made through its “loan broker” scheme.
Thirty-five earthquakes have exceeded 5.5 on the Richter scale so far this year, the most in 14 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said on Facebook on Thursday. A large earthquake in Hualien County on April 3 released five times as much the energy as the 921 Earthquake on Sept. 21, 1999, the agency said in its latest earthquake report for this year. Hualien County has had the most national earthquake alerts so far this year at 64, with Yilan County second with 23 and Changhua County third with nine, the agency said. The April 3 earthquake was what caused the increase in
INTIMIDATION: In addition to the likely military drills near Taiwan, China has also been waging a disinformation campaign to sow division between Taiwan and the US Beijing is poised to encircle Taiwan proper in military exercise “Joint Sword-2024C,” starting today or tomorrow, as President William Lai (賴清德) returns from his visit to diplomatic allies in the Pacific, a national security official said yesterday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said that multiple intelligence sources showed that China is “highly likely” to launch new drills around Taiwan. Although the drills’ scale is unknown, there is little doubt that they are part of the military activities China initiated before Lai’s departure, they said. Beijing at the same time is conducting information warfare by fanning skepticism of the US and
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is unlikely to attempt an invasion of Taiwan during US president-elect Donald Trump’s time in office, Taiwanese and foreign academics said on Friday. Trump is set to begin his second term early next year. Xi’s ambition to establish China as a “true world power” has intensified over the years, but he would not initiate an invasion of Taiwan “in the near future,” as his top priority is to maintain the regime and his power, not unification, Tokyo Woman’s Christian University distinguished visiting professor and contemporary Chinese politics expert Akio Takahara said. Takahara made the comment at a
DEFENSE: This month’s shipment of 38 modern M1A2T tanks would begin to replace the US-made M60A3 and indigenous CM11 tanks, whose designs date to the 1980s The M1A2T tanks that Taiwan expects to take delivery of later this month are to spark a “qualitative leap” in the operational capabilities of the nation’s armored forces, a retired general told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) in an interview published yesterday. On Tuesday, the army in a statement said it anticipates receiving the first batch of 38 M1A2T Abrams main battle tanks from the US, out of 108 tanks ordered, in the coming weeks. The M1 Abrams main battle tank is a generation ahead of the Taiwanese army’s US-made M60A3 and indigenously developed CM11 tanks, which have
RSS