The legislature yesterday passed amendments to the Criminal Code increasing the penalties for crimes associated with organized fraud and human trafficking.
Under the changes proposed jointly by the Executive Yuan and the Judicial Yuan, depriving someone of their freedom of movement and abusive behavior would incur increased sentences.
The changes are a response to an increase in organized crime groups luring people abroad, where they are held captive and forced into illegal work.
Photo: Taipei Times
Article 302 of the Criminal Code had stipulated no more than five years in prison and a fine of up to NT$9,000 (US$292) for taking another into custody or depriving their freedom of movement.
If aggravated injury results, the penalty is three to 10 years in prison, and seven years to life if the actions result in death.
The amendment adds an additional provision to the article specifying circumstances under which harsher penalties could be issued.
The circumstances include three or more people working together to commit the crime, possession of a lethal weapon, targeting a person with disabilities, abusing the victim and restricting a victim’s movement for a week or longer.
When meeting any of these criteria, the perpetrator can be sentenced to one to seven years in prison in addition to a fine of up to NT$1 million.
If aggravated injury results, the culprit can be sentenced to five to 12 years in prison, while in the event of death, the term is raised to 10 years to life.
If the offense is committed against a direct blood relative, the penalties can be increased by 50 percent.
Under the added category of “aggravated fraud” in Article 339-4, the amendment stipulates one to seven years imprisonment and a fine of up to NT$1 million for digitally producing false images, recordings or other records with the purpose of committing fraud.
The expanded penalties have completed the legal principles governing fraud and its derivative crimes, giving police and prosecutors new tools of enforcement, the Ministry of Justice said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods