Prosecutors yesterday appealed a decision to grant Taipei City Councilor Chen Chung-wen (陳重文) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) bail following his detention over alleged corruption.
Chen is accused of accepting kickbacks from contactors in a NT$520 million (US$16.46 million) city project to install surveillance cameras. He posted bail of NT$2 million.
Investigators from the Ministry of Justice Agency Against Corruption yesterday detained Chen and Taiwan Intelligent Fiber Optic Network Consortium chairman Lee Ching-huang (李慶煌) and transferred them to the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office for questioning.
Photo: CNA
Chen, a three-term city councilor representing Taipei’s Shilin (士林) and Beitou (北投) districts, faces charges of contravening the Anti-Corruption Act (貪污治罪條例), while Lee and eight other people are also listed as suspects, prosecutors said.
The Agency Against Corruption last year received information from a whistle-blower about a city government project to install online video streaming and data storage equipment for a closed-circuit television system at police stations, Chinese language media reported.
The whistle-blower said that the budget for the project was cut during a review by city councilors.
Lee asked Chen to alter the budget by using his authority to give the consortium greater profit potential, the whistle-blower said.
Investigators in December last year and January surveilled late-night meetings at which Lee allegedly handed over about NT$10 million to Chen, the reports said.
The consortium has won numerous contracts to supply cameras and other equipment installed at intersections, including a 25-year maintenance contract, they said.
Two other companies have been linked to the scandal, including an agro-biotech company headed by Chen’s wife, Pai Hui-ping (白惠萍), and a cloud storage company headed by Kang Li-chi (康立錡).
Pai was released after posting bail of NT$2 million and Kang was released on NT$300,000 bail.
In other news, Changzi Township (長治) Mayor Ku Chia-chuan (古佳川) on Thursday was convicted of corruption in a first ruling.
The Pingtung District Court said that Ku, an independent, had used government funds for personal expenses and forged receipts, handing him an eight-year sentence.
In line with new laws governing elected officials, Ku was suspended from his position.
Separately, Hsinchu County Councilor Cheng Yu-yun (鄭昱芸) lost her appeal in a corruption case, with the Supreme Court upholding an earlier conviction, meaning she must serve a three-year, eight-month prison sentence.
Investigators found that Cheng pocketed NT$218,000 of government subsidies allocated for her to hire office assistants.
She listed two friends as her assistants, but they never worked for her and she never paid them, investigators said.
AGING: While Japan has 22 submarines, Taiwan only operates four, two of which were commissioned by the US in 1945 and 1946, and transferred to Taiwan in 1973 Taiwan would need at least 12 submarines to reach modern fleet capabilities, CSBC Corp, Taiwan chairman Chen Cheng-hung (陳政宏) said in an interview broadcast on Friday, citing a US assessment. CSBC is testing the nation’s first indigenous defense submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, Narwhal), which is scheduled to be delivered to the navy next month or in July. The Hai Kun has completed torpedo-firing tests and is scheduled to undergo overnight sea trials, Chen said on an SET TV military affairs program. Taiwan would require at least 12 submarines to establish a modern submarine force after assessing the nation’s operational environment and defense
A white king snake that frightened passengers and caused a stir on a Taipei MRT train on Friday evening has been claimed by its owner, who would be fined, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. A person on Threads posted that he thought he was lucky to find an empty row of seats on Friday after boarding a train on the Bannan (Blue) Line, only to spot a white snake with black stripes after sitting down. Startled, he jumped up, he wrote, describing the encounter as “terrifying.” “Taipei’s rat control plan: Release snakes on the metro,” one person wrote in reply, referring
The coast guard today said that it had disrupted "illegal" operations by a Chinese research ship in waters close to the nation and driven it away, part of what Taipei sees a provocative pattern of China's stepped up maritime activities. The coast guard said that it on Thursday last week detected the Chinese ship Tongji (同濟號), which was commissioned only last year, 29 nautical miles (54km) southeast of the southern tip of Taiwan, although just outside restricted waters. The ship was observed lowering ropes into the water, suspected to be the deployment of scientific instruments for "illegal" survey operations, and the coast
Taiwan’s two cases of hantavirus so far this year are on par with previous years’ case numbers, and the government is coordinating rat extermination work, so there should not be any outbreaks, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said today in an interview with the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper). An increase in rat sightings in Taipei and New Taipei City has raised concerns about the spread of hantavirus, as rats can carry the disease. In January, a man in his 70s who lived in Taipei’s Daan District (大安) tested positive posthumously for hantavirus, Taiwan’s
RSS