A top executive at state-run petroleum enterprise CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) was yesterday arrested on suspicion of taking bribes after NT$27 million (US$971,013) in cash was found at his Kaohsiung office in a raid the previous day.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) said it has formed a task force to examine the case.
The Kaohsiung District Prosecutors’ Office said that after questioning, Henry Hsu (徐漢), 61, who is chief executive officer of CPC’s Refining Business Division, was detained, along with a contractor surnamed Liu (劉), to prevent them from colluding or tampering with evidence.
Photo courtesy of the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors’ Office via CNA
A tip-off led the Ministry of Justice’s Agency Against Corruption to raid Hsu’s office on Wednesday, after Liu allegedly delivered the NT$27 million a day earlier.
As Hsu could not provide a legitimate source for the cash, investigators said that it was believed to be from bribes, leading prosecutors to request that Hsu and Liu be detained.
Two other contractors, surnamed Lee (李) and Huang (黃) --- who were later released on bail of NT$600,000 and NT$300,000 respectively --- are suspected of conducting under-the-table deals, investigators said.
Prosecutors said that Hsu and Liu face bribery charges and breaches of the Anti-Corruption Act (貪污治罪條例), while Lee and Huang face bribery and bid-rigging charges, as well as breaches of the Government Procurement Act (政府採購法).
Hsu’s division is responsible for CPC’s two main facilities, the oil refinery in Kaohsiung’s Siaogang District (小港) and the refinery in Taoyuan’s Gueishan District (龜山), which together process 600,000 barrels of crude oil per day, a report released last year by CPC said.
Yesterday, Minister of Economic Affairs Wang Mei-hua (王美花) said that she had requested CPC to fully cooperate with the corruption probe, as well as mandating that a task force conduct an administrative investigation because the case involves a state-run enterprise.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
RSS