More than 60 people are being investigated on suspicion of scalping tickets for the Asian Baseball Championship that opens tomorrow in Taipei, the Taipei City Police Department said on Thursday.
A total of 67 individuals were arrested by Taipei police from Nov. 24 to Thursday on suspicion of violating the Social Order Maintenance Act (社會秩序維護法) by reselling tickets for profit, the department’s Criminal Investigation Division said in a statement.
The tickets were found to be resold at prices ranging between NT$1,000 and NT$4,700 (US$31.77 and US$149.32) each, mostly through social media, police said.
Photo courtesy of the Taipei City Police Department via CNA
About 90 percent of the 170 scalped tickets, which have been seized by police, were for the opener on Sunday between Taiwan and South Korea being held at the Taipei Dome, it said.
The investigation division said a Taoyuan resident was also recently detained for allegedly advertising tickets to the Asian Baseball Championship, as well as various music concerts on Facebook.
A raid carried out by the Criminal Investigation Bureau’s 3rd Investigation Corps on Friday last week found that the suspect had six tickets to the baseball event and 103 tickets for various music concerts.
The person is being investigated for suspected contravention of the Social Order Maintenance Act and the Development of the Cultural and Creative Industries Act (文化創意產業發展法), the division said.
According to Article 64-2 of the Social Order Maintenance Act, those who “[purchase] transportation or entertainment tickets with no intention to use and resell them for profit” may be detained for up to three days or fined no more than NT$18,000.
The police urged the public to report ticket scalpers and to refrain from buying tickets from unauthorized resellers.
The Taipei Dome, a new indoor stadium that is to host its first major international event, is to be the site of the tournament’s opener between Taiwan and South Korea.
Yet of the stadium’s roughly 40,000 seats, tickets for only about 17,000 are for sale, resulting in many people who wanted tickets to the opening game being left behind.
In other news, the Sports Administration intends to budget NT$300 million to upgrade four baseball stadiums across Taiwan.
The funding would be used to upgrade Rakuten Taoyuan Baseball Stadium, Xinzhuang Baseball Stadium, Taichung Intercontinental Baseball Stadium and Tainan Asia-Pacific International Baseball Stadium, Sports Administration director-general Cheng Shih-chung (鄭世忠) said.
All four stadiums are used by clubs in Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League.
“The pro baseball stadiums have reached the point in recent years where they have to be upgraded, and the government is investing a lot of money in this,” Cheng said on Thursday, adding that the program is focused on giving players quality fields and optimizing the fan experience.
The proposed funding is part of a NT$6.4 billion program put forward by the Sports Administration to improve Taiwan’s sports environment by revamping the sports facilities of cities and counties across Taiwan.
Funding for the facility enhancement project is part of the overall funding requested by the Sports Administration in the central government 2024 fiscal year budget, which has yet to be approved by the legislature.
The NT$300 million funding for the four pro baseball stadiums is to go toward improving infield and outfield grass and stadium lighting and drainage, the Sports administration’s Sports Facilities Division head Tsai Wen-chuan (蔡文娟) said.
It would also cover work on the stadiums’ outfield seating, locker rooms and bathrooms, Tsai said.
Once the overall central government budget for next year is approved, it is hoped that the project could be completed within two years, a Sports Administration official said.
ALIGNED THINKING: Taiwan and Japan have a mutual interest in trade, culture and engineering, and can work together for stability, Cho Jung-tai said Taiwan and Japan are two like-minded countries willing to work together to form a “safety barrier” in the Indo-Pacific region, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday said at the opening ceremony of the 35th Taiwan-Japan Modern Engineering and Technology Symposium in Taipei. Taiwan and Japan are close geographically and closer emotionally, he added. Citing the overflowing of a barrier lake in the Mataian River (馬太鞍溪) in September, Cho said the submersible water level sensors given by Japan during the disaster helped Taiwan monitor the lake’s water levels more accurately. Japan also provided a lot of vaccines early in the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic,
Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) on Monday announced light shows and themed traffic lights to welcome fans of South Korean pop group Twice to the port city. The group is to play Kaohsiung on Saturday as part of its “This Is For” world tour. It would be the group’s first performance in Taiwan since its debut 10 years ago. The all-female group consists of five South Koreans, three Japanese and Tainan’s Chou Tzu-yu (周子瑜), the first Taiwan-born and raised member of a South Korean girl group. To promote the group’s arrival, the city has been holding a series of events, including a pop-up
TEMPORAL/SPIRITUAL: Beijing’s claim that the next Buddhist leader must come from China is a heavy-handed political maneuver that will fall flat-faced, experts said China’s requirement that the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation to be born in China and approved by Beijing has drawn criticism, with experts at a forum in Taipei yesterday saying that if Beijing were to put forth its own Dalai Lama, the person would not be recognized by the Tibetan Buddhist community. The experts made a remarks at the two-day forum hosted by the Tibet Religious Foundation of His Holiness the Dalai Lama titled: “The Snow Land Forum: Finding Common Ground on Tibet.” China says it has the right to determine the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation, as it claims sovereignty over Tibet since ancient times,
Temperatures in some parts of Taiwan are expected to fall sharply to lows of 15°C later this week as seasonal northeasterly winds strengthen, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. It is to be the strongest cold wave to affect northern Taiwan this autumn, while Chiayi County in the southwest and some parts of central Taiwan are likely to also see lower temperatures due to radiational cooling, which occurs under conditions of clear skies, light winds and dry weather, the CWA said. Across Taiwan, temperatures are to fall gradually this week, dropping to 15°C to 16°C in the early hours of Wednesday
RSS