The New Taipei District Court yesterday agreed to a motion by prosecutors to detain three people involved with cosmetic chain Airlee Group Co Ltd (愛爾麗集團) after a recording device was found inside a smoke detector at the company's Banciao District (板橋) branch.
At a detention hearing last night, the court ruled that Airlee chairman Chang Ju-shan (常如山), a special assistant surnamed Chang (張) and a supplier surnamed Hsieh (謝) should be detained and held incommunicado.
The court found that the three posed flight risks or could collude with accomplices or witnesses, or destroy, forge or alter evidence.
Photo: Wang I-sung, Taipei Times
A fourth suspect, a general manager surnamed Liu (劉), did not need to be detained and was released on bail of NT$5 million (US$159,236), with restrictions on overseas travel, prosecutors said.
The suspects are believed to have committed sexual privacy violations, offenses against privacy, and contraventions of the Child and Youth Sexual Exploitation Prevention Act (兒童及少年性剝削防制條例) by filming customers without their consent.
The New Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office on Wednesday instructed police to search four Airlee branches in the city, including those in Banciao, Sinjhuang (新莊), Linkou (林口) and Yonghe (永和) districts.
The three main suspects were initially taken in for questioning before prosecutors filed motions to formally detain them.
Some customers of Airlee's Banciao branch formed a self-help group and yesterday gathered outside the clinic to negotiate refund terms and compensation procedures.
Several customers said that the incident had affected their personal lives and work, saying that they had experienced insomnia and emotional distress because they feared footage of them could be leaked.
Customers seeking refunds would need to apply online and visit the clinic in person with documentation for verification, Airlee wrote on Facebook yesterday.
Refunds would apply only to unused treatment sessions, with no deductions for complimentary items and no administrative fees charged, the company said.
During negotiations, customers demanded that Airlee not include clauses requiring victims to waive their right to sue.
One customer, identified by the alias Irene, said the alleged hidden camera incident was horrifying and that she could not accept having been filmed without her knowledge.
A consumer ombudsman would accept complaints and assist people with mediation proceedings, the New Taipei City Government's Legislative Research Bureau said in a statement.
Officials said they had received 57 complaints as of this morning.
On Friday last week, a customer wrote on Threads that she noticed a smoke detector that appeared to be hiding a recording device at Airlee’s Banciao branch.
Though clinic staff insisted it was only a smoke detector, she reported it to police.
When she returned with officers, they opened the device and found a recording unit connected to a power source.
Police on Sunday detained Hsieh in Taichung and alleged that he had driven from Taipei to remove recording devices installed at 10 branches at someone else's direction.
Prosecutors said that they found multiple videos of alleged victims on the main recording system and cameras they seized.
Traces of a removed surveillance camera were also found on the ceiling of one branch in Kaohsiung, while another branch in the city had a functioning surveillance camera in a treatment room, the Kaohsiung Department of Health said in a statement on Wednesday.
As of this morning, more than 10 people had filed police reports in connection with the case, New Taipei City authorities said.
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