Chiayi County Councilor Tsai Cheng-yi (蔡政宜), who is being questioned in a money laundering case, was placed in pretrial detention on Tuesday after he was arrested attempting to board an international flight.
Tsai, who is also known as the “Windshield Wiper” (雨刷) and was convicted in the 2009 baseball game-fixing scandal, was arrested on Sunday at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport attempting to board a flight to Vietnam. Following a hearing on Tuesday, he was placed in pretrial detention to prevent him from fleeing the country.
Prosecutors have said that Tsai heads a criminal organization that assists in money transfers and money laundering for international gambling and casino operators, and is estimated to have handled up to NT$20 billion (US$650.9 million) over the past four years.
Photo: Tsai Ching-hua, Taipei Times
Kaohsiung’s Ciaotou District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday said that an investigation found that Tsai owns a more than NT$100 million residence in Kaohsiung’s harbor-front area, as well as several other properties and high-worth assets.
Prosecutors said they have sufficient evidence, including witness testimony, to charge Tsai under the Organized Crime Prevention Act (組織犯罪防制條例) and the Money Laundering Control Act (洗錢防制法) for allegedly laundering more than NT$100 million and on aggravated offenses of money laundering.
News reports said that investigators raided a money laundering operation in Kaohsiung, arresting several suspects, and gathering evidence and testimony implicating Tsai as the main backer of the group.
Investigators found several money transfer and laundering operations in Kaohsiung and other cities that included computers and telecom systems for international remittance and money laundering, prosecutors said, adding that Tsai allegedly worked with online casino sites and gambling businesses run by crime networks in Vietnam and Cambodia.
Prosecutors said that Tsai allegedly employed a “hit-and-run” strategy, housing an operation in a luxury commercial building for a few months before relocating to prevent authorities from tracking the money laundering.
Tsai allegedly instructed employees to operate online banking and transaction services, linking up with offshore entities to send illegal gambling proceeds to dummy accounts, where the funds were converted to cryptocurrencies, mainly ether, making it more difficult to trace transactions, prosecutors said.
Tsai, who is not affiliated with a party, was elected to the Chiayi County Council from Dongshih Township (東石) in the 2022 nine-in-one elections.
He was arrested in 2009 for his involvement as the alleged mastermind of an underground betting ring in which he and intermediaries bribed baseball players to fix games from 2006 to 2009. He was sentenced to three years and eight months in prison, and was released in 2016.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday voiced dissatisfaction with the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans- Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), whose latest meeting, concluded earlier the same day, appeared not to address the country’s application. In a statement, MOFA said the CPTPP commission had "once again failed to fairly process Taiwan’s application," attributing the inaction to the bloc’s "succumbing to political pressure," without elaborating. Taiwan submitted its CPTPP application under the name "Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu" on Sept. 22, 2021 -- less than a week after China
THE GOOD WORD: More than 100 colleges on both sides of the Pacific will work together to bring students to Taiwan so they can learn Mandarin where it is spoken A total of 102 universities from Taiwan and the US are collaborating in a push to promote Taiwan as the first-choice place to learn Mandarin, with seven Mandarin learning centers stood up in the US to train and support teachers, the Foundation for International Cooperation in Higher Education of Taiwan (FICHET) said. At the annual convention of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages held over the weekend in New Orleans, Louisiana, a Taiwan Pavilion was jointly run by 17 representative teams from the FICHET, the Overseas Community Affairs Council, the Steering Committee for the Test of Proficiency-Huayu, the
A home-style restaurant opened by a Taiwanese woman in Quezon City in Metro Manila has been featured in the first-ever Michelin Guide honoring exceptional restaurants in the Philippines. The restaurant, Fong Wei Wu (豐味屋), was one of 74 eateries to receive a “Michelin Selected” honor in the guide, while one restaurant received two Michelin stars, eight received one star and 25 were awarded a “Bib Gourmand.” The guide, which was limited to restaurants in Metro Manila and Cebu, was published on Oct. 30. In an interview, Feng Wei Wu’s owner and chef, Linda, said that as a restaurateur in her 60s, receiving an
MORE RETALIATION: China would adopt a long-term pressure strategy to prevent other countries or future prime ministers following in Sanae Takaichi’s steps, an academic said Taiwan should maintain communications with Japan, as Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is to lead a revision of security documents, Taiwanese academics said yesterday. Tensions have risen between Japan and China over remarks by Takaichi earlier this month that the use of force against Taiwan would constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan. Prospect Foundation president Lai I-chung (賴怡忠) yesterday said Takaichi’s stance regarding Taiwan is the same as past Japanese prime ministers, but her position is clearer than that of her predecessors Fumio Kishida and Shigeru Ishiba. Although Japan views a “Taiwan contingency” as a “survival-threatening situation,” which would allow its military to
RSS