Taipei prosecutors on Tuesday last week indicted seven people over thefts of national ID numbers from e-commerce sites to help business tycoon Terry Gou’s (郭台銘) presidential petition drive last year.
The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said the defendants were involved in the trade of national ID numbers to fabricate petitions for Gou when he sought an independent presidential bid for the Jan. 13 election.
The indictment issued by the office said that a man surnamed Yu (余) and a woman surnamed Hsu (許) were contacted on the encrypted instant messaging software Telegram by two individuals with the Internet names “CK” and “Bao.”
Photo: Chien Li-chung, Taipei Times
The duo instructed Hsu to procure the details of Taiwan’s national identification card holders for NT$200 each.
The indictment said that Yu provided 16,000 tether coins, a cryptocurrency stablecoin, which amounted to about NT$480,000, to Hsu for the operation.
The case was brought to the attention of authorities after members of the public reported identity thefts, leading to the arrest of Yu and his alleged accomplices, prosecutors said.
Taipei prosecutors indicted seven people — Yu, Hsu, a man surnamed Chen (陳) and four underaged people — for contraventions of Taiwan’s laws, including the Presidential and Vice Presidential Election and Recall Act (總統副總統選舉罷免法) and the Personal Data Protection Act (個人資料保護法).
Prosecutors said the four underaged people involved with the alleged counterfeiting of petitions had been sent to juvenile court.
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