Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) officials on Wednesday said that they have broken up an international telecom fraud ring and arrested 14 people.
The ring was allegedly led by a man surnamed Cheng (鄭), who last year set up the group’s operating base in Cambodia.
He earlier this year moved the base to Montenegro, and then to Italy and Turkey, before returning to Taiwan due to the COVID-19 pandemic, said Wang Chia-hua (王嘉華), captain of the CIB’s Crime-Fighting Corps in central Taiwan.
Due to language and cultural barriers, the fraudsters did not target citizens of other countries, but focused on defrauding people in China, Hong Kong and Macau, Wang said.
Telecom records and bank statements showed that the suspects allegedly defrauded about 80 people, mostly Chinese nationals, over the telephone or social media, Wang said, adding that they made illegal gains of about NT$12 million (US$421,215).
The ring members moved to a new country every few months to evade police surveillance, while Cheng allegedly coordinated their operations from Kaohsiung, Wang said.
After receiving tip-offs on Cheng’s activities, the CIB in August carried out raids in Kaohsiung and other locations, arresting Cheng and eight other ring members who had returned to Taiwan, Wang said.
The fraudsters fooled their victims by telling them that they had been caught up in a Chinese judicial investigation for hoarding masks or other medical supplies related to COVID-19 prevention, or for their involvement in money laundering, and asked them to wire money to designated bank accounts, Wang said.
After the arrests in August, five other suspects were caught when they returned to Taiwan in the past few months, Wang said, adding that CIB officers waited for them to complete their 14-day mandatory quarantine at designated hotels before taking them in for questioning.
AGING: While Japan has 22 submarines, Taiwan only operates four, two of which were commissioned by the US in 1945 and 1946, and transferred to Taiwan in 1973 Taiwan would need at least 12 submarines to reach modern fleet capabilities, CSBC Corp, Taiwan chairman Chen Cheng-hung (陳政宏) said in an interview broadcast on Friday, citing a US assessment. CSBC is testing the nation’s first indigenous defense submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, Narwhal), which is scheduled to be delivered to the navy next month or in July. The Hai Kun has completed torpedo-firing tests and is scheduled to undergo overnight sea trials, Chen said on an SET TV military affairs program. Taiwan would require at least 12 submarines to establish a modern submarine force after assessing the nation’s operational environment and defense
A white king snake that frightened passengers and caused a stir on a Taipei MRT train on Friday evening has been claimed by its owner, who would be fined, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. A person on Threads posted that he thought he was lucky to find an empty row of seats on Friday after boarding a train on the Bannan (Blue) Line, only to spot a white snake with black stripes after sitting down. Startled, he jumped up, he wrote, describing the encounter as “terrifying.” “Taipei’s rat control plan: Release snakes on the metro,” one person wrote in reply, referring
The coast guard today said that it had disrupted "illegal" operations by a Chinese research ship in waters close to the nation and driven it away, part of what Taipei sees a provocative pattern of China's stepped up maritime activities. The coast guard said that it on Thursday last week detected the Chinese ship Tongji (同濟號), which was commissioned only last year, 29 nautical miles (54km) southeast of the southern tip of Taiwan, although just outside restricted waters. The ship was observed lowering ropes into the water, suspected to be the deployment of scientific instruments for "illegal" survey operations, and the coast
Taiwan’s two cases of hantavirus so far this year are on par with previous years’ case numbers, and the government is coordinating rat extermination work, so there should not be any outbreaks, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said today in an interview with the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper). An increase in rat sightings in Taipei and New Taipei City has raised concerns about the spread of hantavirus, as rats can carry the disease. In January, a man in his 70s who lived in Taipei’s Daan District (大安) tested positive posthumously for hantavirus, Taiwan’s
RSS