Police have made two arrests related to an election betting operation allegedly headed by a Chinese operator with the intention of influencing Taiwan’s elections, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said on Thursday.
The two male suspects surnamed Lee (李), 22, and Liu (劉), 30, were arrested in New Taipei City and Hsinchu County respectively, and detained for questioning earlier this month, officials from the CIB office in Taichung said in a news release.
Evidence points to Liu, who has prior criminal convictions, as the leader of the betting pool, acting as the representative for the mastermind based in China, the CIB said, adding that the person in China instructed Lee and other ring members to collect money, handle transactions and keep accounts.
Photo courtesy of the CIB Taichung office
Police investigators said they last month came upon an advertisement of “Betting on 2024 Presidential Election with given odds and latest poll figures,” on a Facebook page registered to a foreign IP address, the bureau said.
From a voice recording of a conversation between the mastermind and Liu, investigators deduced that the mastermind is Chinese, as his accent and word choice indicated as much, they said.
The betting scheme was likely organized by groups in China to influence the outcome of the presidential election in January, investigators said.
The investigators found five people had made bets of up to NT$50,000, the bureau said.
Prosecutors questioned the two suspects, who are facing charges on money laundering offenses and breaching of the Presidential and Vice Presidential Election and Recall Act (總統副總統選舉罷免法) and the Public Officials Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法).
“Election betting pools usually have large transaction flows. They can cause damage to democratic elections, at times even more than traditional vote-buying,” Prosecutor-General Hsing Tai-Chao (邢泰釗) said.
By tracing the money, prosecutors have found that illegal election betting in Taiwan is promoted mainly on social media, with significant financing by companies in southeast Asian countries, he said.
“These companies are based overseas, but target Taiwanese with their online gambling businesses, and now they offer bets on election outcomes,” he said. “They are likely using underground channels and cryptocurrencies to transfer a large amount of funds into Taiwan, and many of them either have Chinese owners or they are financed to serve Chinese interests.”
“We must enhance efforts to crack down, as they should be considered as hostile forces aiming to meddle in elections,” Hsing said.
Yunlin County Chief Prosecutor Tai Wen-liang (戴文亮) said that in past years, investigators have observed increasingly more illegal gambling on election outcomes, in which operators receive large sums of funds from unknown sources to skew the odds to entice people to bet on particular candidates.
“Those who place large wagers would go to their relatives and friends to persuade them to cast their vote for a certain candidate, or to bet,” Tai said.
A study published by online booking platform Expedia revealed searches for travel to Taipei have ballooned 2,786 percent following the lifting of COVID-19 pandemic travel restrictions due to the city being a “designation dupe” for Seoul. The TikTok trend for duping — referring to substituting a designation for a more inexpensive alternative — helped propel interest in Taipei, it said in a consumer survey titled “Unpack ‘24,” which was conducted from September to October in 14 countries. Location dupes are “every bit as delightful as the tried-and-true places travelers love,” Expedia trend tracker Melanie Fish said of the year’s popular alternatives, which
SAFETY IN REGULATION: The proposal states that Chiayi should assess whether it is viable to establish such a district and draft rules to protect clients and sex workers The Chiayi City Council passed a motion yesterday to assess the viability of establishing a regulated red-light district. The council yesterday held its last session of the year, at which its fiscal 2024 budget was approved, along with 61 other proposals. The proposal to assess the viability of establishing a red-light district was put forward by independent Chiayi City Councilor Molly Yen (顏色不分藍綠支持性專區顏色田慎節). The proposal cited 2011 amendments to the Social Order Maintenance Act (社會秩序維護法), which stipulate that city and county governments can pass autonomous regulations on the sex trade to manage the industry and guarantee industry workers’ rights. A ban on the
CHINA illness surge: Of 88 travelers from China, Hong Kong and Macau with respiratory symptoms who were encouraged to get tested upon arrival, 70.6% had the flu Two hundred and sixty people with COVID-19 were hospitalized and 31 deaths related to the virus were reported last week — the highest numbers in four weeks, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, adding that cases are expected to peak next month. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Director Guo Hung-wei (郭宏偉) said that of the 260 people hospitalized last week with moderate to severe COVID-19, 98 percent had not received the Omicron XBB.1.5-adapted COVID-19 vaccine. Among the people hospitalized this year, 78 percent were aged 65 or older, while most of the those who were hospitalized or died have or had
A small-scale protest that called on the government to cancel its plan to welcome Indian migrant workers in a bid to tackle Taiwan’s labor shortage was held in Taipei yesterday. During the protest, comprised of a few dozen people staged in front of the Presidential Office on Ketagalan Boulevard, the protest’s chief initiator, a woman identified only as “Yuna” said they wanted the central government to reconsider allowing migrant workers from India to enter Taiwan. Most people in Taiwan had little knowledge about the potential plan to allow in Indian migrant workers until a report in the media last month, she
RSS