Taipei prosecutors yesterday indicted nine people who allegedly trafficked 88 young adults to work for Cambodia-based fraud rings.
Starting in November last year, the nine people received up to US$18,000 per person recruited, who were in two separate groups, prosecutors said.
The recruiters used Facebook to target young adults who were unemployed or had financial problems, offering them high-paying jobs at casinos or gaming clubs, prosecutors said, adding that the jobs that were promised were in Sihanoukville, Cambodia.
Photo: CNA
People duped by the scams were held against their will after they arrived in Sihanoukville and were forced to engage in phone scam operations, prosecutors said.
Those who did not perform satisfactorily were beaten, shocked or enslaved, they said.
They were also threatened with being buried alive, stories of people having their organs harvested or being transported to another place to face even worse conditions, the indictment said.
At least 88 people were trafficked by the two groups, including 18 who were rescued and have returned to Taiwan, prosecutors said.
The two groups received US$17,000 to US$18,000 for each person sent to Cambodia, prosecutors said.
Police arrested one group of three led by a man surnamed Lin (林) on May 5 and another group of six led by a man surnamed Lee (李) on July 5, and a court granted a request by prosecutors to detain six of them incommunicado.
The nine suspects were indicted on multiple counts of human trafficking, attempted fraud, interference with personal freedom and involvement in organized crime, prosecutors said.
In related news, two people surnamed Chen (陳) and Fu (傅) were arrested and questioned by prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday for suspected involvement in a separate human trafficking ring.
The two suspects were originally arrested in Taipei last month on suspicion of trafficking 20 people — some of whom live in Hualien County — to Cambodia for telecom fraud operations.
The cases were investigated by Hualien prosecutors and the suspects were released on bail on Thursday.
Prosecutors in New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋) said that they acquired new information on the two men after they were released and arrested them yesterday. They were still being questioned as of yesterday afternoon.
The New Taipei City case is separate from the Hualien case.
Taiwanese were praised for their composure after a video filmed by Taiwanese tourists capturing the moment a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Japan’s Aomori Prefecture went viral on social media. The video shows a hotel room shaking violently amid Monday’s quake, with objects falling to the ground. Two Taiwanese began filming with their mobile phones, while two others held the sides of a TV to prevent it from falling. When the shaking stopped, the pair calmly took down the TV and laid it flat on a tatami mat, the video shows. The video also captured the group talking about the safety of their companions bathing
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
RSS