Authorities have extended a travel ban and other restrictions on a suspected Chinese intelligence officer and his wife, who were charged with money laundering and breaches of the National Security Act (國家安全法), the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said on Friday.
Xiang Xin (向心) and his wife, Kung Ching (龔青), were on Thursday last week charged with breaching the Money Laundering Control Act (洗錢防制法) in a case related to self-professed Chinese spy William Wang Liqiang (王立強).
Restrictions barring the couple from leaving the country, which expire today, were extended for another eight months, as an investigation continues into allegations that they established a spy network in Taiwan.
Xiang and Kung were stopped at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport on Nov. 24, 2019, while allegedly attempting to flee the country, one day after Australian media aired interviews with Wang.
Wang told reporters that he had conducted espionage in Taiwan and that Xiang was a spy for China, directing espionage activities, intelligence gathering and covert operations in Taiwan and Hong Kong.
The couple had registered China Innovation Investment Ltd (中國創新投資) in Taipei, with Xiang as executive director and Kung as acting director, prosecutors said, adding that they invested in real estate, purchasing three luxury condominium units in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義).
Wang told Australian media that the firm was a shell company, “whose founding mission was to infiltrate Hong Kong, but was later tasked with influencing elections in Taiwan.”
Over the past decade, the couple had illegally transferred about NT$740 million (US$26.02 million at the current exchange rate), mainly from the Shanghai-based Guotai Investment Holding Group (國太投資), prosecutors said.
In 2018, a Shanghai court sentenced Guotai Investment executives to prison for terms ranging from 12 years to life after they were found guilty of earning 40 billion yuan (US$6.1 billion at the current exchange rate) from illegal investment schemes. The business was dissolved.
Prosecutors said the couple laundered money for Guotai Investment executives.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), spokeswoman Yang Chih-yu (楊智伃) and Legislator Hsieh Lung-chieh (謝龍介) would be summoned by police for questioning for leading an illegal assembly on Thursday evening last week, Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) said today. The three KMT officials led an assembly outside the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office, a restricted area where public assembly is not allowed, protesting the questioning of several KMT staff and searches of KMT headquarters and offices in a recall petition forgery case. Chu, Yang and Hsieh are all suspected of contravening the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) by holding
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