Hsinchu County prosecutors yesterday indicted eight people suspected of working with Chinese criminal groups to launder money and defraud people who believed they were legitimately investing in cryptocurrency.
After receiving tip-offs, prosecutors and police carried out four raids between November last year and last month, targeting Taichung-based Xuhui Huanyu Technology Co (旭輝寰宇科技公司), its offices, staff and the homes of company executives, the Hsinchu County District Prosecutors’ Office said in a statement.
Two Taiwanese, surnamed Chang (張) and Tsai (蔡), allegedly set up the partnership with Xuhui Huanyu owner Wu Kuan-huan (吳冠寰) to create a cryptocurrency platform, said Yeh Tzu-chen (葉子誠), the prosecutor in charge of the case.
Photo courtesy of the Hsinchu District Prosecutors’ Office
The company would place online advertisements promising profits from investing with them and offering services to convert tether cryptocurrency to New Taiwan dollars, Yeh said.
Chang and Tsai, who had worked in China, allegedly have ties to Chinese criminal groups in Xiamen, China, who are engaged in fraud and investment scams, he said.
An investigation found that 53 Taiwanese had been defrauded of a total of NT$51.69 million (US$1.73 million), the statement said.
Chang, Tsai and Wu were charged with contraventions of0 the Money Laundering Control Act (洗錢防制法) and the Organized Crime Prevention Act (組織犯罪防制條例), Yeh said.
The five other suspects were listed as accomplices, Yeh said.
The operation began in August last year, when Chang returned to Taiwan to work with Wu, whose company focused on computer equipment, software and system services, the prosecutors said.
Together they transformed the Taichung company into a cryptocurrency operation that allegedly laundered money for Chinese criminal organizations, Yeh said.
Along with company staff participating in fraudulent activities, Wu also hired people to communicate with victims, facilitate transactions. and pass on to them forged receipts and accounting statements, the prosecutors said.
The suspects used encrypted messaging apps, such as Telegram and FaceTime, to evade monitoring, making it difficult for judicial investigators to track their actions in real time, the statement said.
Victims were led to believe they could make money using Wu’s firm to buy and trade tether, with Wu providing an e-wallet to register the transaction and providing documents containing the date of transaction and the amount, it said.
That was all part of the fraud, as the amount was transferred to accounts controlled by heads of the criminal ring, while Wu received a 0.6 percent commission, Yeh said.
Wu would in turn pay the people who facilitated the scam directly with the victims receiving a 0.2 percent commission, while other staff involved in collecting money from victims would receive a one-time cash payment of NT$3,000 to NT$5,000, he said.
STAY AWAY: An official said people should avoid disturbing snakes, as most do not actively attack humans, but would react defensively if threatened Taitung County authorities yesterday urged the public to stay vigilant and avoid disturbing snakes in the wild, following five reported snakebite cases in the county so far this year. Taitung County Fire Department secretary Lin Chien-cheng (林建誠) said two of the cases were in Donghe Township (東河) and involved the Taiwan habus, one person was bit by a Chinese pit viper near the South Link Railway and the remaining two were caused by unidentified snakes. He advised residents near fields to be cautious of snakes hiding in shady indoor areas, especially when entering or leaving their homes at night. In case of a
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
ENERGY RESILIENCE: Although Alaska is open for investments, Taiwan is sourcing its gas from the Middle East, and the sea routes carry risks, Ho Cheng-hui said US government officials’ high-profile reception of a Taiwanese representative at the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference indicated the emergence of an Indo-Pacific energy resilience alliance, an academic said. Presidential Office Secretary-General Pan Men-an (潘孟安) attended the conference in Alaska on Thursday last week at the invitation of the US government. Pan visited oil and gas facilities with senior US officials, including US Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy and US Senator Daniel Sullivan. Pan attending the conference on behalf of President William Lai (賴清德) shows a significant elevation in diplomatic representation,
Credit departments of farmers’ and fishers’ associations blocked a total of more than NT$180 million (US$6.01 million) from being lost to scams last year, National Police Agency (NPA) data showed. The Agricultural Finance Agency (AFA) said last week that staff of farmers’ and fishers’ associations’ credit departments are required to implement fraud prevention measures when they serve clients at the counter. They would ask clients about personal financial management activities whenever they suspect there might be a fraud situation, and would immediately report the incident to local authorities, which would send police officers to the site to help, it said. NPA data showed
RSS