The Taipei District Court on Monday sentenced Chang Kang-wei (張綱維), former chairman of the now-defunct Far Eastern Air Transport Corp (FAT, 遠東航空), to 14 years in prison after finding him guilty of embezzling corporate funds and other crimes.
He was also given another one-year sentence that can be commuted to a fine, said the court, which also ordered the confiscation of his illegal gains of NT$3 billion (US$94.23 million).
The decision can be appealed.
Photo: Chen Wei-tzu, Taipei Times
Chang was also indicted on charges of fraud, special breach of trust and contravening the Securities Exchange Act (證券交易法), all involving his use of the airline to finance personal businesses.
The airline had struggled financially from the 2000s to early 2020, when it ceased operations and had its air operator certificate revoked.
In 2008, FAT faced a financial crisis due to alleged illegal acts by another former chairman, Stephen Tsui (崔湧) and other executives, and filed a restructuring application with a local court, which was granted on Feb. 23 that year.
After FAT announced bankruptcy, Chang took over its management in 2009 by allegedly producing falsified financial statements of his own business conglomerate Huafu Enterprise Holdings Ltd (樺福集團) and saying it had sufficient funds to invest in FAT, the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office indictment said.
After FAT emerged from bankruptcy restructuring in 2015, the airline quickly experienced a severe financial deficit the next year, in part due to Chang’s maneuvers, it said.
In October 2015, Chang negotiated a NT$1.3 billion loan at a 6.5 percent interest rate for FAT, but then allegedly transferred the funds to Huafu while leaving FAT saddled with the relatively high interest rate loan, the indictment said.
In addition, prosecutors said Chang negotiated a NT$2.2 billion loan for FAT from Taiwan Cooperative Bank in July 2016, which he allegedly used to pay off the NT$2.25 billion Huafu owed to Entie Commercial Bank.
He also allegedly continued to misappropriate more than NT$800 million in funds from FAT, they said.
Facing an audit of FAT’s accounts by the Civil Aviation Administration, Chang allegedly forged five receipts saying they were IOUs for funds lent by FAT to Huafu, they said.
Realizing that FAT was cash-strapped, the agency ordered it to recoup the NT$3.1 billion it was supposedly owed by outside parties.
Fearing that FAT would be fined by the agency and have its flight schedule disrupted, Chang bundled and transferred Huafu’s “Xiaopingding” property development project in Tamsui to the airline, to satisfy the agency’s request and offset the NT$3.1 billion of receivables in FAT’s accounts, they said.
Chang knew that sales of the project’s units were sluggish, they said.
As a result, the airline took over a large number of unfinished buildings and a real-estate project that was difficult to develop and incurred significant losses, prosecutors said.
PRAISE: Japanese visitor Takashi Kubota said the Taiwanese temple architecture images showcased in the AI Art Gallery were the most impressive displays he saw Taiwan does not have an official pavilion at the World Expo in Osaka, Japan, because of its diplomatic predicament, but the government-backed Tech World pavilion is drawing interest with its unique recreations of works by Taiwanese artists. The pavilion features an artificial intelligence (AI)-based art gallery showcasing works of famous Taiwanese artists from the Japanese colonial period using innovative technologies. Among its main simulated displays are Eastern gouache paintings by Chen Chin (陳進), Lin Yu-shan (林玉山) and Kuo Hsueh-hu (郭雪湖), who were the three young Taiwanese painters selected for the East Asian Painting exhibition in 1927. Gouache is a water-based
A magnitude 4.1 earthquake struck eastern Taiwan's Hualien County at 2:23pm today, according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA). The epicenter of the temblor was 5.4 kilometers northeast of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 34.9 km, according to the CWA. The earthquake's intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was the highest in Hualien County, where it measured 2 on Taiwan's 7-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 1 in Yilan county, Taichung, Nantou County, Changhua County and Yunlin County, the CWA said. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.
OFF-TARGET: More than 30,000 participants were expected to take part in the Games next month, but only 6,550 foreign and 19,400 Taiwanese athletes have registered Taipei city councilors yesterday blasted the organizers of next month’s World Masters Games over sudden timetable and venue changes, which they said have caused thousands of participants to back out of the international sporting event, among other organizational issues. They also cited visa delays and political interference by China as reasons many foreign athletes are requesting refunds for the event, to be held from May 17 to 30. Jointly organized by the Taipei and New Taipei City governments, the games have been rocked by numerous controversies since preparations began in 2020. Taipei City Councilor Lin Yen-feng (林延鳳) said yesterday that new measures by
‘WORSE THAN COMMUNISTS’: President William Lai has cracked down on his political enemies and has attempted to exterminate all opposition forces, the chairman said The legislature would motion for a presidential recall after May 20, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday at a protest themed “against green communists and dictatorship” in Taipei. Taiwan is supposed to be a peaceful homeland where people are united, but President William Lai (賴清德) has been polarizing and tearing apart society since his inauguration, Chu said. Lai must show his commitment to his job, otherwise a referendum could be initiated to recall him, he said. Democracy means the rule of the people, not the rule of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), but Lai has failed to fulfill his
RSS