The Cabinet yesterday approved a draft amendment of the Organized Crime Prevention Act (組織犯罪條例) to aggravate penalties for criminals involved in luring people into extraterritorial organized crime, after a number of Cambodia-based scam operations were found to have Taiwanese associates.
Currently, according to the Act, the recruitment of people to organized crime would be punished by a jail sentence of between six months and five years and a fine of up to NT$10 million, regardless of whether the crimes take place in Taiwan or overseas.
Under the proposed amendment, any offense related to recruiting Taiwanese to join a criminal organization outside the territory of the Republic of China would result in a prison sentence of between one and seven years, and a fine of up to NT$20 million (US$653,648), according to the Cabinet.
Photo: Chiu Chun-fu, Taipei Times
If offenders target victims who are under 18, the punishment will be increased by up to half.
Meanwhile, the amendment added a clause stating that the property of any group which supports a criminal organization such as providing funding or recruitment shall be confiscated after deducting any amount belonging to victims.
The amendment, drafted by the Ministry of Justice, will be referred by the Cabinet to the Legislature for deliberation.
Should the amendment pass the Legislature, people convicted for involvement in trafficking Taiwanese to Cambodia to work for criminal organizations engaged in activities such as telecom fraud, sexual exploitation and organ removal, shall be subject to the more severe punishment, the ministry said in a statement.
As of Dec. 12, the government has assisted in the return of 403 Taiwanese, many of whom were allegedly lured to Cambodia with offers of fake lucrative jobs and then forced to work for criminal organizations, but around 300 people are believed to still be held in the country against their will, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ (MOFA) news release.
Taiwan’s Liu Ming-i, right, who also goes by the name Ray Liu, poses with a Chinese Taipei flag after winning the gold medal in the men’s physique 170cm competition at the International Fitness and Bodybuilding Federation Asian Championship in Ajman, United Arab Emirates, yesterday.
Costa Rica sent a group of intelligence officials to Taiwan for a short-term training program, the first time the Central American country has done so since the countries ended official diplomatic relations in 2007, a Costa Rican media outlet reported last week. Five officials from the Costa Rican Directorate of Intelligence and Security last month spent 23 days in Taipei undergoing a series of training sessions focused on national security, La Nacion reported on Friday, quoting unnamed sources. The Costa Rican government has not confirmed the report. The Chinese embassy in Costa Rica protested the news, saying in a statement issued the same
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
RSS