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.
FINAL COUNTDOWN: About 50,000 attended a pro-recall rally yesterday, while the KMT and the TPP plan to rally against the recall votes today Democracy activists, together with arts and education representatives, yesterday organized a motorcade, while thousands gathered on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei in the evening in support of tomorrow’s recall votes. Recall votes for 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers and suspended Hsinchu City mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) are to be held tomorrow, while recall votes for seven other KMT lawmakers are scheduled for Aug. 23. The afternoon motorcade was led by the Spring Breeze Culture and Arts Foundation, the Tyzen Hsiao Foundation and the Friends of Lee Teng-hui Association, and was joined by delegates from the Taiwan Statebuilding Party and the Taiwan Solidarity
‘NON-RED’: Taiwan and Ireland should work together to foster a values-driven, democratic economic system, leveraging their complementary industries, Lai said President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday expressed hopes for closer ties between Taiwan and Ireland, and that both countries could collaborate to create a values-driven, democracy-centered economic system. He made the remarks while meeting with an Irish cross-party parliamentary delegation visiting Taiwan. The delegation, led by John McGuinness, deputy speaker of the Irish house of representatives, known as the Dail, includes Irish lawmakers Malcolm Byrne, Barry Ward, Ken O’Flynn and Teresa Costello. McGuinness, who chairs the Ireland-Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Association, is a friend of Taiwan, and under his leadership, the association’s influence has grown over the past few years, Lai said. Ireland is
Instead of threatening tariffs on Taiwan-made chips, the US should try to reinforce cooperation with Taiwan on semiconductor development to take on challenges from the People’s Republic of China (PRC), a Taiwanese think tank said. The administration of US President Donald Trump has threatened to impose across-the-board import duties of 32 percent on Taiwan-made goods and levy a separate tariff on semiconductors, which Taiwan is hoping to avoid. The Research Institute for Democracy, Society, and Emerging Technology (DSET), a National Science and Technology Council think tank, said that US efforts should focus on containing China’s semiconductor rise rather than impairing Taiwan. “Without
An SOS message in a bottle has been found in Ireland that is believed to have come from the Taiwanese captain of fishing vessel Yong Yu Sing No. 18 (永裕興18號), who has been missing without a trace for over four years, along with nine Indonesian crew members. The vessel, registered to Suao (蘇澳), went missing near Hawaii on Dec. 30, 2020. The ship has since been recovered, but the 10 crew members have never been found. The captain, surnamed Lee (李), is believed to have signed the note with his name. A post appeared on Reddit on Tuesday after a man