Taipei police have arrested six people suspected of defrauding a South Korean national through a scheme involving cryptocurrency and a luxury watch, the Daan Precinct of the Taipei Police Department said in a statement yesterday.
Police launched an investigation after a South Korean businessman in Taiwan in April reported being scammed while seeking to purchase cryptocurrency and a luxury watch through an online platform.
Photo courtesy of the Taipei Police Department
The South Korean met three men — a 33-year-old surnamed Lu (盧), a 26-year-old surnamed Hou (侯) and a 20-year-old surnamed Yang (楊) — at a coffee shop in Taipei before moving to their car to complete the transaction, only to discover they had nothing to sell.
According to police, the South Korean rushed out of the car after realizing it was a scam without taking his backpack, which contained NT$500,000 in cash for the planned purchases.
The police did not provide any further details on exactly what happened when the man was in the car or why he left the backpack behind.
After reviewing CCTV footage, the police found that the suspects briefly stopped in Taipei's Daan District (大安) to alter the license plate on the day they met the man, before abandoning the vehicle in New Taipei City's Sansia District (三峽) in an attempt to evade pursuit.
Those three suspects were arrested in April.
Further investigation identified three more men — a 37-year-old surnamed Yu (俞), a 31-year-old surnamed Chang (張) and a 30-year-old surnamed Wen (溫) from Hualien County — who were allegedly involved in orchestrating the scheme, providing fake IDs and supplying vehicles.
The police said they arrested the three people and seized more than NT$90,000 in cash, four mobile phones, bank cards and passbooks as evidence during multiple raids in Hualien and New Taipei City's Pinglin District (坪林) late last month, but the case was not made public until yesterday.
All six suspects have been referred to the Taipei District Prosecutors' Office on charges including fraud, contravention of the Organized Crime Prevention Act (組織犯罪防制條例) and money laundering, the police said.
Eight Chinese naval vessels and 24 military aircraft were detected crossing the median line of the Taiwan Strait between 6am yesterday and 6am today, the Ministry of National Defense said this morning. The aircraft entered Taiwan’s northern, central, southwestern and eastern air defense identification zones, the ministry said. The armed forces responded with mission aircraft, naval vessels and shore-based missile systems to closely monitor the situation, it added. Eight naval vessels, one official ship and 36 aircraft sorties were spotted in total, the ministry said.
INCREASED CAPACITY: The flights on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays would leave Singapore in the morning and Taipei in the afternoon Singapore Airlines is adding four supplementary flights to Taipei per week until May to meet increased tourist and business travel demand, the carrier said on Friday. The addition would raise the number of weekly flights it operates to Taipei to 18, Singapore Airlines Taiwan general manager Timothy Ouyang (歐陽漢源) said. The airline has recorded a steady rise in tourist and business travel to and from Taipei, and aims to provide more flexible travel arrangements for passengers, said Ouyang, who assumed the post in July last year. From now until Saturday next week, four additional flights would depart from Singapore on Monday, Wednesday, Friday
The Ministry of National Defense yesterday reported the return of large-scale Chinese air force activities after their unexplained absence for more than two weeks, which had prompted speculation regarding Beijing’s motives. China usually sends fighter jets, drones and other military aircraft around the nation on a daily basis. Interruptions to such routine are generally caused by bad weather. The Ministry of National Defense said it had detected 26 Chinese military aircraft in the Taiwan Strait over the previous 24 hours. It last reported that many aircraft on Feb. 25, when it spotted 30 aircraft, saying Beijing was carrying out another “joint combat
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) today said that if South Korea does not reply appropriately to its request to correct Taiwan’s name on its e-Arrival card system before March 31, it would take corresponding measures to alter how South Korea is labeled on the online Taiwan Arrival Card system. South Korea’s e-Arrival card system lists Taiwan as “China (Taiwan)” in the “point of departure” and “next destination” fields. The ministry said that it changed the nationality for South Koreans on Taiwan’s Alien Resident Certificates from “Korea” to “South Korea” on March 1, in a gesture of goodwill and based on the
RSS