Taiwan's Tainan District Prosecutor's Office recently investigated a fraud case of investment and purchase of virtual currency, and applied to the Tainan District Court to detain and prohibit 11 defendants from seeing them, but was unexpectedly rejected by the judge, which triggered Taiwan's public opinion to "blackmail has become a slogan" and "the more you fight, the more you cheat".
Is it common sense to "teach the war code"?
According to Taiwan media reports, the Tainan District Prosecutor's Office investigated a fraud case of investment and purchase of virtual currency, arrested 11 members of the fraud group in Taipei and Taichung, and found that more than 10 victims were defrauded of millions of yuan (New Taiwan dollars, the same below). After the retrial, the prosecution applied to the Tainan District Court for detention and inadmissibility, but the court ruled that all of them were rejected and released without bail, triggering a controversy over connivance with fraud syndicates.
The prosecution believes that the defendant transmitted the "Code of Conduct and Warfare" to the group members in the communication software to respond to the prosecutor's questioning, and reminded the members involved in the case, "If any of you have a slight error in the transcript, it will cause all of you to enter the district prosecutor's office", and found that there was a risk of collusion in evidence. However, the judge found that this code was only an "internal company rule", and in order to avoid affecting the company's operations, it was common sense to require members to make careful statements. After the prosecution filed a protest, the Tainan High Court ruled that "there is something negotiable", revoked it and remanded it to the Tainan District Court for a new ruling.
Regarding this ruling, which threatens to turn "blackmail into a slogan", although the Tainan District Court issued a statement explaining the reasons for the rejection, public opinion has not subsided. A scholar who has handled the mediation of several fraud cases submitted a letter to the United Daily News that in terms of social norms, how can a decent and legally operated company teach its employees how to answer questions from prosecutors? As far as general social experience is concerned, the role of the "Religious War Code" is to collude with each other, and this move is more likely to involve group crimes, with the aim of colluding and destroying evidence.
Public opinion has even pointed out that in recent years, Taiwan's fraud cases have been deteriorating in the cycle of "you catch it, I release it," and this case is a typical portrayal. The prosecutors painstakingly wired and quickly arrested people, but in the end, they could not resist the court's gentle indulgence, and all their efforts were in vain. As for the people's loss of money and the rampant fraud, it seems that they are not in the minds of the judges. Some netizens bluntly said, "I don't know that there are many corruptions, black gold, and frauds today... It's all in the name of 'company management'! What the officials think is likely to be a big thing for the people, so don't be careful! ”
The number of cases of public investment fraud has reached a new high
According to statistics released by Taiwan's "Financial Supervisory Commission", as of the end of November, the number of fraudulent advertisements reported this year reached 11,15511, and the number of cases increased by 11,4491 in November alone; In the first 11 months, the number of public investment fraud cases climbed to 710, surpassing the 636 cases in the whole of last year and also rewriting a new high in the past five years. It is evident that the fraud situation has not improved significantly, but has become more rampant.
According to Taiwan media reports, the usual investment fraud methods used by illegal businesses are often in the name of investment companies, investment consulting companies or financial advisory companies, through mobile phone text messages, social media and other communication tools to transmit false investment information, and advertise "soaring stocks", "high returns" and "guaranteed profits", etc., to trick people into joining investment groups or becoming members, and even claiming that they can operate on their behalf to collect funds.
The Taiwan Stock Exchange recently discovered that a fraudulent group invited people to join social media investment groups in the name of investment companies, and in order to further win the trust of investors, they did not hesitate to pretend to be the "Financial Supervisory Commission" and the stock exchange, and forged documents, claiming that the company had paid a guarantee to the stock exchange, which can be used to ensure the safety of platform users' funds and repay the loss of funds, in an attempt to remove the public's defense and trick them into remitting money.
What's more, the opening of physical stores has lowered the public's vigilance. According to Taiwan media reports, according to the police investigation, a 27-year-old member of the Tiandao Alliance Sun Club surnamed Sun set up a virtual currency physical store in Taipei City, under the guise of selling virtual currency, but in fact he was suspected of engaging in fake investment and real fraud activities, and the police preliminary investigation found that more than 100 people were deceived and the amount of property losses exceeded 2 million yuan.
When is the end of the civil discontent?
Taiwan's top ten grievance incidents since 2020 have been announced a few days ago, among which the "Southeast Asian fraud case" and "open Lai pig imports" and "lack of eggs and imported egg disputes" have been included in them. In the recently announced results of Taiwan's 2023 representative word selection, the word "fraud" ranked third. The problem of fraud has obviously become one of the stubborn problems that plague the people of Taiwan.
Lai Shibao, a public opinion representative of the Chinese Kuomintang, pointed out in a post on social media that the rampant fraud syndicates in Taiwan have not been a year or two, and the "fraud industry" has flourished in the recession of all industries. Last year, nearly 70 billion yuan was obtained from fraud, and 5.241 billion yuan of people's hard-earned money has been looted by fraud groups in the past five years.
According to Taiwan media statistics, in the past five years, the investigation and prosecution rate of fraud cases in Taiwan is only 5.21%, and most of them are not prosecuted on the grounds of insufficient criminal evidence. Even if they are sentenced, as many as 9.85% of fraudsters are convicted for less than three years, creating a reality that the benefits of crime are high and the costs are low.
The China Times pointed out in a commentary that the most common types of fraud in Taiwan, including sending text messages soliciting people to join social media groups to persuade them to buy stocks, requesting to download fake financial product trading platform apps, and committing fraud on virtual trading platforms, are all through telecommunications or the Internet.
The comment said that even if the fraud group is finally caught, it will either be lenient or lenient. The relevant departments will only draw up a budget to send money to the "extorting Taiwan team" and will not supervise where the money is spent. Scams are "very risky and highly profitable", so it's no wonder that fraudsters enjoy it. (China News Service WeChat public account, author: Nanxing)