Former Taipei urban development department head Huang Ching-mao (黃景茂) was released on NT$5 million (US$156,289) bail early yesterday after being questioned by prosecutors over his alleged role in a corruption scandal linked to the Core Pacific City redevelopment project.
The Agency Against Corruption questioned Huang as a witness on Friday and later listed him as a suspect for allegedly benefiting from the Core Pacific Group (威京集團).
He was questioned by the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office at about 6pm the same day and was released on NT$5 million bail at about 1am on Saturday.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
Huang is forbidden from leaving Taiwan or changing his residence.
Prosecutors said that Huang allegedly helped Core Pacific Group raise the floor area ratio (FAR) of the redevelopment project in 2020 to boost the value of the property. The project involved building a new office complex named Core Pacific Plaza on the site of the Core Pacific City shopping mall in Taipei’s Songshan District (松山).
During a meeting with Taipei City Councilor Angela Ying (應曉薇) on March 10, 2020, then-Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) allegedly said he would handle Core Pacific City’s FAR, which he directed to the Taipei City Urban Development Department in the same month, investigators found.
Prosecutors said Ying allegedly acted as a go-between for Core Pacific Group chairman Sheen Ching-jing (沈慶京) and high-ranking city officials, including then-Taipei deputy mayor Pong Cheng-sheng (彭振聲).
Core Pacific City submitted an application for a floor area reward program in July 2020, which Huang and Pong approved, and forwarded it to the Urban Planning Committee for review, they said.
However, the Ko administration and Core Pacific City were engaged in an administrative lawsuit at the time, and the committee held its first meeting before the outcome of the lawsuit.
Pong and Huang allegedly approved the program based solely on a one-page report submitted by Core Pacific City, prosecutors said.
Based on documents obtained during their investigation, prosecutors said that Ko, Huang and Peng allegedly facilitated the approval of Core Pacific City’s floor area reward, effectively giving it the green light.
It is still under investigation whether Huang and Pong acted on direct orders from Ko or on their own.
Ko has said he knew nothing about the redevelopment project’s FAR.
Ko, Pong, Sheen, Ying and Ying’s assistant Wu Shun-min (吳順民) are being detained and held incommunicado amid their suspected involvement in the case.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS