Vincent Tan denies investing US$250m in get-rich-quick 'Formula'
PETALING JAYA: Berjaya Corp Bhd founder and executive chairman Tan Sri Vincent Tan Chee Yioun (<<pic) has denied investing US$250 million in a project known as "The Formula" which allegedly promises huge profits and quick riches.
Tan said in a statement today said that the 'The Formula' is supposedly a share trading platform that allows trades executed through it to beat the stock market with an accuracy of 80% thereby allowing users to make huge profits.
"I refer to a current online media entitled 'Vincent Tan gives back to the people with his latest project" wherein it is reported that I have invested US$250 million in a project known as "The Formula" with a wish to make Malaysians wealthy.
"I would like to categorically deny that I have made an investment in this project or that I am in any way involved in it and there is absolutely no truth in this report which I believe has been put out by unscrupulous persons to deceive the public," Tan said.
Tan has reported the matter to the relevant authorities so that appropriate action can be taken and urged the public to take caution on promises of quick riches and not to fall prey to scams.
Tan said this is not the first time his name has been used in similar instances for the purpose of lending credibility to online investment scams.
On June 28 (see below), Tan exposed a dubious startup trading platform called "Bitcoin Formula" which used his name and doctored photos to promote its business.
An article claiming he had invested in and was promoting Bitcoin Formula, together with some photographs, was circulated on social media.
The article was accompanied by a few photographs, one showing Tan allegedly awarding a cheque for RM500,000 to Bitcoin Formula for winning the "Project of the Year" prize in a computer engineering "hackathon" in Kuala Lumpur, and another picture of him apparently speaking about Bitcoin Formula at a social media business summit.
Both pictures were in fact images altered with the use of photo-editing software and had originally been taken by theSun in March 2014 and January last year.
A check with the Companies Commission of Malaysia found that no company by the name of Bitcoin Formula exists.
This picture of Tan Sri Vincent Tan speaking at the Social Economic
Forum at the GK Enchanted Farm in Bulacan in the Philippines was
doctored to appear as if he was promoting Bitcoin Formula
PETALING JAYA: Berjaya group founder and executive chairman Tan Sri Vincent Tan has blown the whistle on a dubious startup trading platform called "Bitcoin Formula", which has used his name and doctored photos to promote its business.
It came to Tan's attention that an article claiming he had invested in and was promoting Bitcoin Formula, together with some photographs, was being circulated on social media after a friend who saw it asked him if it would indeed be a good investment.
"How can it be a good investment when the operators have to resort to such dishonest ways like using my name in fake reports and doctored photographs to promote their business?" he said.
"I think anyone who invests in such a shady business will surely lose their money," said Tan, who urged the public not to be deceived by such posts on social media.
The article about the company, that purports to promote blockchain and crypto technologies, claimed Tan had donated RM500,000 to Bitcoin Formula, a supposed financial startup by young computer engineers developing an efficient trading platform.
The article was accompanied by a few photographs, one showing Tan allegedly awarding a cheque for RM500,000 to Bitcoin Formula for winning the "Project of the Year" prize in a computer engineering "hackathon" in Kuala Lumpur, and another picture of him apparently speaking about Bitcoin Formula at a social business summit.
Both pictures were in fact images altered with the use of photo-editing software, and had originally been taken by theSun in March 2014 and January last year.
The cheque presentation photo was actually of Tan presenting a RM500,000 award to representatives of Dharma Master Cheng Yen of the Taiwan Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation after she was named Better Malaysia Foundation's Personality of the Year in 2015.
The other image was taken when Tan was speaking at the Social Economic Forum that was held at the GK Enchanted Farm in Bulacan, in the Philippines.
A check with the Companies Commission of Malaysia found that no company by the name of Bitcoin Formula exists.
Tan is apparently the latest prominent person whose name had been used by get-rich-quick scheme operators to scam unsuspecting people, and prominent tycoons like AirAsia founder Tan Sri Tony Fernandes and "Sugar King" Robert Kuok were among people whose names have been used by these scammers.
Tan also dismissed a Facebook article claiming that he will be donating RM525 million to Tabung Harapan Malaysia.
"There is absolutely no truth to either of these reports, that I believe have been put out by unscrupulous persons to deceive the public. I hope the public do not get fooled by these fake reports," he added.
Credit:
Amar Shah Mohsen newsdesk@thesundaily.com
Easy target: Fake news is a big problem here because many of us are too impressionable when it comes to news on the Internet.
HARDLY a day passes without someone sharing a video with me. No one bothers to check, not for a minute, if this could be nothing more than a fake video gone viral. Yet, amazingly, they are quick to forward such things to me.
And that doesn’t even include the unsolicited political messages, through which senders expect their receivers to echo their political enthusiasm.
More alarmingly, residents chat groups on uncollected rubbish or poor maintenance, suddenly see political messages popping up in them. Even prayer and old classmates chat groups aren’t spared, my goodness.
Blame it on what is often dubbed “silly season”, leading up to the general election, but don’t test our patience by diverting our attention to something trivial. It is downright irritating and insulting. And who cares about these politicians, anyway? Not everything in life is about politics, after all.
On Friday, a video went viral on what looked like a gun fight between the police and a notorious gang in Kuala Lumpur.
Some truth-seekers took the trouble to check with the media, but most would have despatched it to their friends in no time at all.
As trained journalists, we obviously scrutinised the video to look for give-aways. It doesn’t take a detective to pick out the holes, but then, there are many gullible Malaysians.
For one, the tiny yellow taxis in the video don’t exist in KL. There is no such building with that staircase structure in the capital, either, and there was a camera crew in plain view running around filming the action scenes, clearly indicating a movie set.
Most of the cars in the video aren’t even models we regularly see in Malaysia, and there was also a guy who ran by wearing what appeared to be heavy clothing.
On Thursday night, it got even sillier.Leaping out of the world wide web was a video of what’s been made to look like a Malaysian student being bullied in a classroom.
The comments by some racist airheads really infuriated me. With the victim appearing Chinese, the bully possibly Malay – he looked Indian to me – it became fertile ground to sow the seeds of hate.
At no point did it occur to them that this video could have come from Singapore. It didn’t even cross their minds that Malaysian students no longer wear uniforms entirely in white. The last time students were decked completely in white was probably in 1979 – during my time as a student. And desks and chairs in green? In our schools?
The Education Ministry has come out to confirm that the incident in that widely-shared video happened in Singapore on Feb 9.
Describing the footage as a “severe case of bullying”, Deputy Education Minister Datuk P. Kamalanathan urged netizens to stop spreading the clip.
“This happened at Westwood Secondary School in Singapore. Please don’t spread this video and claim that it happened in Malaysia.
“Before forwarding anything, it would be wise to authenticate its veracity to avoid confusion and misinformation,” he added.
A group of students from Westwood Secondary School were filmed punching, kicking and throwing chairs at a classmate in a video that then went viral, reported Singapore’s The Straits Times on Feb 18.
In the video posted on Facebook page Fabrications About Singapore on Feb 15, a student can be heard egging his friends on to “teach” one of their classmates a lesson.
Two students were captured throwing chairs at a boy seated at his table in a classroom while on his mobile phone. The boy is stunned when a chair hits his head.
A student then slaps the boy, before throwing a series of punches and kicks at him.
Then, the student overturns the boy’s chair, shoves him to the floor and continues to pummel him.
Then, there was the fake sex video, which purportedly featured national badminton hero Datuk Lee Chong Wei as a “movie star”.
I meet my fellow Penangite regularly, and I can safely say that I have observed him up close and personal.
I can tell that Lee is much more muscular than that skinny, presumably, porno actor in the video, and the hairstyle doesn’t even match our sports idol’s.
Lee has done right by making a police report, and let’s hope the police, with the help of the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission, swiftly track down the culprits of this vicious smear campaign.
It’s obvious that some people not only want to discredit the three-time Olympic silver medallist but are looking for maximum mayhem by aligning their dubious act to coincide with the release of his feature length biopic Lee Chong Wei: Rise of the Legend next month.
And that’s far from the end of the tall tales. There’s also this pathetic fake news about rejected Musang King durians from China – timed to perfection to be “reported” right before the International Durian festival in Bentong.
The Internet burned with a doctored picture depicting a mountain of the “rejected” fruits, which were said to have been exposed to extremely high levels of insecticide.
Those who shared that piece of poor journalism – either because they were sincerely concerned, genuinely ignorant or politically motivated – didn’t know, or cared to find out that Malaysia doesn’t export durians in its original fruit form but rather, as frozen pulp in packages.
And for sure, the Chinese wouldn’t have wanted to bear the freight charge to return these bad durians to Malaysia. The life span of our durian is only a day or two. How could it have been stacked up like that in the picture?
Durian lovers who inspected the picture could tell they were not Musang King, but instead, something of Thai origin.
With the general election looming, the recycled rumours of Bangladeshi phantom voters arriving by the planeloads at KLIA2 have resurfaced. Even an opposition state assemblyman, in her Chinese New Year video criticising the #UndiRosak activists, cheekily added that “even the Bangladeshis want to vote.” Can you picture 40,000 of them milling at our airport?
Although not a shred of evidence has come to light to back up the incredulous claim, the myth continues to be perpetuated, and it’s a given it will be rinsed and repeated. Perhaps it’ll be the Nepalese or Rohingya this time?
While the ordinary Malaysian can be forgiven for being easily swayed, it’s an entirely different story when journalists find themselves duped, or God forbid, spreading the “news”.
In the 2013 general election, a prominent TV presenter posted on his Facebook page claiming a blackout occurred at the Bentong counting centre, which led to the Barisan Nasional winning the parliamentary seat, slyly implying the coalition cheated during the result tabulation.
He got his network into hot water when he returned to his FB profile to say, “when my child is born, I will ask him to write an essay with the title ‘The Blackout Night’. The beginning of the essay would be on May 5, 2013, there was a stiff fight in the Bentong seat. Someone had said that he would cut his ears if it is lost, and then the counting process started, blackout ...”
To credit MCA president Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai’s opponent, DAP challenger Wong Tack denied the rumours. But let’s hope this presenter has since matured, and perhaps, become more cynical as a journalist or presenter, at least.
The most frequent fake news that sparks to life every few weeks would be the dates of the Parliament’s dissolution and polling.
Interestingly, in the case of the polling date “report”, it involved the Prime Minister having an audience with the King, accompanied by the Deputy Prime Minister and Speaker.
It’s all very simple, really – the PM doesn’t need anyone tagging along, and after meeting the King, he surely can’t be fixing a date since that job belongs to the Election Commission.
A news portal reported that fake news is a big problem here because many of us are too impressionable when it comes to news on the Internet.
The Asian Correspondent reported: “Without questioning the veracity of certain claims and announcements, it seems that oftentimes, anything resembling a news story – whether shared on social media or via mobile messaging apps – is swallowed wholesale.
“Let’s look at how WhatsApp has become a popular platform to spread news. How many of you have received forwarded messages that clearly resemble fake news and could have easily been dismissed as such? I’m sure so many have, and speaking from experience, it definitely gets frustrating.
“The worst part is that when you question the person who unwittingly forwarded the news, he or she would say, ‘I don’t know if it’s true or not. I received it from someone else, so, I’m just forwarding.’”
This has happened continually because no one is punished for their unscrupulous and reckless deeds, even if their actions lead to undesirable consequences amounting to racial tension, riots and even death.
And the campaigning hasn’t even begun! So, let’s put on our thinking caps and brace for the inevitable soon – a deluge of fake news.
On the beat Wong Chun Wai
Wong Chun Wai began his career as a journalist in Penang, and has served The Star for over 27 years in various capacities and roles. He is now the group's managing director/chief executive officer and formerly the group chief editor.
On The Beat made its debut on Feb 23 1997 and Chun Wai has penned the column weekly without a break, except for the occasional press holiday when the paper was not published. In May 2011, a compilation of selected articles of On The Beat was published as a book and launched in conjunction with his 50th birthday. Chun Wai also comments on current issues in The Star.
REGRETTABLY Malaysia seems to be fertile ground for all sorts of scammers. Just yesterday I received a text message from Bank Negara Malaysia, warning me not to open emails that claim they are from BNM and ask for payment verification.
The newspapers report every month on hundreds of Malaysians losing millions of Ringgit to all sorts of financial predators.
These are the four types of financial predators you should be aware of.
Financial predators that are selling you something amazing (for them). Some financial predators are trying to sell you something and only later you find out that the item is not the best use of your money at all.
Watch out for these financial predators:
* The pyramid scheme operator who is selling you products which sound expensive and technologically sophisticated, but are worthless.
* The shop owner, who recommends expensive or high margin products, which turn out to be unpopular or old products to increase his profit or clear his inventory.
* The property agent, who pushes you to purchase a house despite knowing that there is a price correction coming. He just cares about getting his commission.
* Financial predators that want to make you rich (but make you poor instead).
Other financial predators are not selling you a product, but a dream: to be rich one day. You would be amazed to find out how much people are willing to spend in their pursuit of this dream. You can get rich in many ways, but not nearly as many, as ways in which you can get scammed.
For instance, consider:
*The investor or trader that is selling you currency, gold, stock or property with the promise of extremely high returns. Sometimes they don’t sell the assets, but a "secret" formula or (software) tool to always make a winning trade. Don’t fall for it!
* The prince, minister, lottery winner, retired general and other personalities which will reward you with a slice of their wealth. If first you pay some legal / custom fees.
* The fake lottery / contest predator, that tricks you into thinking you won a sizeable sum of money. You just need to pay up some administration fees before you can redeem your prize.
* The scratch & win agent and casino operator. “The house always wins.” You will bring more to the casino operator than he will give back.
* The (soccer) bookie, who extends upfront credit for you to place more bets and win back your losses. But if you keep losing, his friendly helpfulness will quickly vanish.
Financial predators that "just" want to help you (into bigger problems)
Some financial predators pretend they just want to help you – some may even say they have nothing to gain from it. Be aware of these sophists!
* The financial planner that gets more commission the more financial products you buy. Never mind whether you really need all that insurance and other financial products.
* The loan shark that will give you better rates or quicker disbursement than the bank, but asks much higher interest rates in return.
* The salesman that is selling you expensive insurance on top of your car / phone etc that already have guarantee from the manufacturer.
* The car dealerships and stores who encourage you to take their own (more expensive) financing plans instead of your bank's instalment plans.
* The financial predator that is in love with you (or is it your money)?
* And then finally, the financial predator that lures you with dreams of romance. This one is the saddest of all, because doesn’t everyone deserve more genuine love in their life?
And isn’t it heart-breaking to see how scammers toy with people’s strongest desires, just for monetary gains?
Be aware for online girlfriends and boyfriends that contact you out of nowhere. Don’t be surprised when you find scammers that try to deceive you with romantic talk in the darkest of alleyways on the Internet (or just around the corner on Facebook and other social media apps).
Especially be wary if you have never seen your new love in real life or (s)he is a foreigner and needs your money in order to pay for visa or flights or to pay off local debts before (s)he is allowed to leave.
As you can tell, Malaysia and the world are full of financial predators. Don’t fall prey to them and become their lunch.
By Mark Reijman The Star/ANN
Mark Reijman is co-founder and managing director of https://www.comparehero.my/dedicated to increasing financial literacy and to help you save time and money by comparing all credit cards, loans and broadband plans in Malaysia. Keen on joining the team as a writer, then email mark@comparehero.my
Parties, media call for justice for telecomfraud victims. Political parties and media outlets from Chinese Mainland and Taiwan have denounced a telecomfraud case, and said the suspects must be brought to justice. This is after Taiwan police on Saturday released 20 suspects who were deported from Malaysia....
Malaysia repatriated a group of telecom fraud suspects Friday, including
20 Taiwanese. Taiwan authorities maneuvered to have them sent to
Taiwan.
To the surprise of the outsiders, these Taiwanese
suspects were released in a few hours after arrival at Taoyuan
International Airport.
When Kenya last week sent a batch of
telecom fraud suspects to the Chinese mainland, also including
Taiwanese, it triggered a public outcry in Taiwan. Pro-independence
media and leading figures, including Tsai Ing-wen, protested against the
mainland for "illegal abduction." Now Taiwan is showing that it is more
lenient to fraud suspects than anywhere in the world.
Taiwan's
judicial authorities expressed that the crime was committed in Malaysia
and victims were mainlanders. Since they do not hold evidence against
these suspects, they have to release them first.
However last
week, the same department stated that it was in accordance with
international law that Kenya repatriated Taiwan suspects to the
mainland, and "only the mainland can hold them in control."
Pro-independence forces would not admit the change was a result of
pressure they exerted.
To the outside world, protests against the
mainland and releasing suspects show the ugly side of Taiwan politics
when it is taken hostage by radical public opinion.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is manipulating and coping with populism.
The release of the 20 suspects has disgraced the Taiwanese media and Taiwan's rule of law.
The
mainland is clear how the DPP is manipulating public opinion to
instigate "anti-China" sentiments. Swayed by such sentiments, Taiwan
politics prioritizes stance over facts.
Western democratic
politics can easily provide a hotbed for radicalism and extremism.
Taiwan and Hong Kong both have demonstrated this tendency.
A
judiciary case, which should be fact-oriented, is turned into a
political event across the Straits. The suspects even applauded Taiwan
for its "human rights" after being released. Should the mainland feel
indignant or treat it with disdain?
The key is that the mainland
should stick more firmly to its principles, and resolutely resist the
rascally demands by Taiwan's twisted politics.
Taiwan's poor
performance in handling the suspects is also teaching a lesson to other
countries. Malaysia is proved wrong in repatriating the fraud suspects
back to Taiwan. Kuala Lumpur should learn from the case and not be
tricked by Taiwan in the future.
Taiwan, which is an inseparable
part of China, is always eager to prove it is a "country." Taiwan's
ingrained sense of inferiority and paranoia have permeated into its
politics, resulting in its self-righteous performances, of which
Taiwan's public should be aware.- Global Times
China urges Taiwan to give fraud suspects "punishment they deserve"
20 fraud suspects from Taiwan arrive in Taoyuan airport in Taiwan on Friday, April 15, 2016 after being deported from Malaysia. [Photo/IC]
A Chinese mainland spokesman on Saturday urged Taiwan to give fraud suspects "the punishment they deserve," stressing that the release of them will only make fraud more rampant and harm cross-Straits law enforcement cooperation.
Taiwan police earlier on Saturday released 20 fraud suspects who were deported from Malaysia Friday evening, citing a lack of evidence. They were among 52 people from Taiwan arrested in Malaysia for suspected telecommunication fraud.
"By releasing the suspects, Taiwan authorities disregarded many victims' interests and harmed them a second time. It also harmed the two sides' cooperation in jointly cracking down on crimes," said An Fengshan, the spokesman with the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office.
Taiwan phone scammers come clean
Phone scams are nothing new, and yet the people behind this faceless crime continue to swindle billions of yuan from hapless victims every year.
Boiler rooms run by scammers from Taiwan were responsible for over 50 percent of all telecom fraud in China's mainland. Nearly all major cases with reported losses in excess of 10 million yuan ($1.54 million) were organized by scammers from Taiwan, according to the Ministry of Public Security (MPS).
In the past seven days, 77 alleged fraud syndicate members, including 45 from Taiwan, were repatriated to China's mainland from Africa.
In interviews with Xinhua, some of the suspects from Taiwan came clean about this illicit practice.
WHO, HOW ?
20 fraud suspects from Taiwan arrive in Taoyuan airport in Taiwan on Friday, April 15, 2016 after being deported from Malaysia. [Photo/IC]
One suspect from Taoyuan in Taiwan, identified only by his surname Jian, traveled to Kenya to join a boiler room in 2014.
According to Jian, the organization he worked for divided its members into first-, second- and third-tier groups according to their roles. All worked off pre-written scripts when talking to their "clients."
The first-tier group, a team of about a dozen people, masqueraded as managers of medical insurance accounts to acquire their victims' personal information, Jian explained.
In the calls, the victims were told that they were victims of identity theft, and their "case" would be transferred to the police after they had confirmed certain information.
Then it was time for the second-tier group, the "police officers," to take over the case. This team informed the victims that their identities had been used to facilitate money laundering, said Jian, who was one of the "police officers."
The victims were then pressed for more information, such as family background, occupation, income and bank account details. The second-tier group would then try and wheedle out how much cash the victims had in their bank accounts.
"If there was not much money, we would talk the victims into transferring their balance to us," said Jian, "however, if they were holding large deposits we would transfer the case to the third-tier group."
Another suspect, who was identified by the surname Xu, was a member of this third-tier group. His bluff was that he was the director of the financial crime department.
"We told the victims that their money must be transferred to our 'safe account' for investigation, and instructed them how to do this at an ATM," said Xu.
The fraudsters used software that changed the numbers they called from to those registered to mainland police stations.
"Any 'savvy' victim could check the number while we were on the phone," he said, "and they would be reassured."
The gang even played recordings of police stations or hospitals as background noise during the calls to further win the trust of their unsuspecting victims.
According to the police, members of the gang received a monthly salary based on their performance. The third-tier group, usually the most skilled fraudsters, earned the most, getting up to eight percent of the money earned in each deal.
Police said that the bosses and core members of many fraud rings were from Taiwan. In Jian and Xu's case, only members of the first-tier groups were from the mainland, who were usually new to the world of telecom scams.
Investigators found that during recruitment, fraud rings often favored those with criminal records.
"I am familiar with how phone scams work, so that was why the boss asked me to join," said Xu, who served a seven month sentence for fraud in Taiwan's Taichung City in 2010.
Mainland urges Taiwan to give fraud suspects 'punishment they deserve'
EXPORTING FRAUD
20 fraud suspects from Taiwan arrive in Taoyuan airport in Taiwan
on Friday, April 15, 2016 after being deported from Malaysia. [Photo/IC]
The people of Taiwan have been aware of phone scams and for this reason, around 2002, fraud rings from Taiwan began to target mainlanders.
These fraud gangs are oldhands at writing convincing scripts and devising new methods to cheat victims out of their money and information, said Zhang Jun from the criminal investigation department of the MPS. Some, he added, even create mirror websites of mainland judicial agencies to further support their back stories.
Authorities on the mainland and Taiwan worked hard to improve cooperation and stamp out telecom fraud across the Strait. However, rather than packing up and "going straight," many gangs just relocated to Southeast Asia, Africa and Oceania.
Since 2011, police from both sides have arrested more than 7,700 suspects implicated in telecom fraud gangs working in Southeast Asia, with about 4,600 of them from Taiwan.
"To hide from the police, many telecom fraud rings established themselves far from Chinese eyes, like Kenya in this case. But we are confident that we will find them, no matter where they are," said Zhang. - Xinhua)
Chinese telecom fraud suspects repatriated from Kenya
https://youtu.be/9ATJqOjmbSg
BEIJING, April 13, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Chinese telecom fraud suspects deported from Kenya get off a plane after arriving at the Beijing Capital International Airport in Beijing, capital of China, April 13, 2016. Kenyan police deported 77 Chinese telecom fraud suspects, including 45 Taiwanese, to the Chinese mainland. The first group of 10 people had been repatriated on Saturday and the remaining 67 were sent back by a chartered plane on Wednesday. (Xinhua/Yin Gang)
The first 10 people were repatriated on Saturday and the remaining 67 on Wednesday, the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) has confirmed. It is the first time that China has repatriated such a large group of telecom fraud suspects from Africa.
In recent years, syndicates led by suspects from Taiwan and based in Southeast Asia, Africa and Oceania have been falsely presenting themselves as law enforcement officers to extort money from people on the Chinese mainland through telephone calls, according to Chinese police.
In one case cited by the MPS in a statement, a person surnamed Yang from Duyun City of Guizhou Province was cheated by a syndicate, led by a Taiwan suspect, of 117 million yuan (18.1 million U.S. dollars) in December 2015.
Victims in other cases included migrant workers, teachers, students and elderly people from the Chinese mainland, and some of them committed suicide under the pressure of their economic losses, according to the statement.
The MPS said judicial organs on the Chinese mainland have legal rights of jurisdiction over the repatriated suspects.
Mainland police will investigate Taiwan suspects in strict accordance with the law and keep Taiwan authorities informed, the statement added.
The 77 suspects are from two telecom fraud syndicates. On Nov. 29, of 2014, Kenyan police arrested 48 people from the Chinese mainland and 28 from Taiwan over telecom scams. On April 8 of 2016, 19 suspects from the mainland and 22 from Taiwan were apprehended on similar charges.
In the past few years, police from the mainland and Taiwan have arrested more than 7,700 suspects, about 4,600 of them from Taiwan, in 47 joint operations to fight telecom frauds based in Southeast Asia.
However, in many of the cases handled by Taiwan judicial organs, Taiwan suspects were not brought to justice and victims on the mainland were unable to retrieve their lost money, An Fengshan, spokesperson for the State Council's Taiwan Affairs Office, told a news conference on Wednesday.
Quite a few Taiwan suspects were released as soon as they were returned to Taiwan and some resumed their wrongdoing soon after, An said.
"They have caused a tremendous loss to people on the Chinese mainland... triggering strong discontent," according to the spokesperson.
An said the office's director Zhang Zhijun informed Taiwan's mainland affairs chief Andrew Hsia about the repatriation on Tuesday.
The legal rights and interests of the repatriated Taiwan suspects will be guaranteed in accordance with the law, he said.
"Judicial departments from Taiwan are welcome to visit the mainland to explore ways of strengthening cooperation between the two sides in cracking down on such international telecom fraud," said the MPS. - Xinhua
Kenya right to extradite Taiwan suspects to mainland
Taiwan's "Ministry of Foreign Affairs" criticized the Chinese mainland Monday after eight out 23 Taiwanese people were deported from Kenya to the Chinese mainland following their acquittal on telecommunications fraud charges. The news, hyped up by the Taiwanese media, soon became a focus of attention on the island. The Taiwan government has demanded the mainland immediately return the eight to Taiwan.
Taiwan's public opinion sphere has launched strong protests and criticism against the mainland's "illegal abduction." However, Taiwan's judiciary authority acknowledged Tuesday that although the eight Taiwanese were acquitted of unlicensed business activities related to telecommunications, they still face charges of fraud, and the mainland's extradition conforms to international laws.
It is not news that some Taiwanese involve themselves in telecommunications fraud, with mostly mainland people as victims. Mainlanders' losses reached NY$500 million ($15.4 million) reportedly.
The responses from the Taiwanese public opinion sphere, especially the pro-independence media, is politicized, which, to a large extent, has contributed to the local authorities' attitude. The pro-independence camp always associates cross-Straits disputes with the mainland "suppressing" Taiwan, provoking "anti-mainland" sentiments on the island to the maximum.
It is indisputable, both in law and in the One China policy, that the Chinese mainland can extradite the eight Taiwanese involved in the fraud charges. The mainland's handling of the case is supported by international laws.
As the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) will take office soon, the radical forces on the island are increasingly active and arrogant. Targeting the mainland and the One China policy, they are responsible for the surging number of petty actions on the island.
The mainland needs to respond firmly to the radical pro-independence forces of Taiwan. The mainland has many more tools at its disposal now to punish these forces, compared with 16 years ago when Chen Shui-bian came to power. The mainland won't intentionally seek trouble with the other side, even after the DPP assumes power.
But the new Taiwan administration must hold itself with dignity, exercising restraint and opposition to the extreme show of radical forces. The mainland will be able to see clearly if the new administration is appeasing them.
As the DPP moves closer to taking office, Taiwan is shrouded in an aggressive atmosphere.
Whether Taiwanese are allowed to use a "Republic of Taiwan" sticker on their passport is being debated in the legislative body. Now Taiwan is making a fuss about the mainland extraditing Taiwan suspects from abroad. Don't expect the mainland to yield to these disgraceful acts.
Taiwanese society should pursue dignity from development and progress, not from "national sovereignty." The latter is an illusion to Taiwan which the DPP is trying to sell.
Taiwan should approach this latest incident from a cross-Straits judiciary cooperation perspective and negotiate with the mainland. It is important that the Taiwan side does not politicize the matter. - Global Times
Experts defend mainland's jurisdiction over Taiwanese fraud suspects
Kenya's deportation of Taiwanese telecom fraud suspects to the Chinese mainland within the past week was lawful and reasonable, according to legal observers on the mainland.
There were 45 Taiwanese among 77 Chinese alleged fraud syndicate members who arrived in the mainland on Saturday and Wednesday. It is the first time that China has such a large group of telecom fraud suspects repatriated from Africa.
"As all victims are from the mainland, judicial organs on the mainland have legal rights of jurisdiction over the repatriated Taiwanese suspects, according to the principle of territorial jurisdiction required in international criminal litigation," said Lin Wei, vice president of China Youth University of Political Studies.
The deportations have sparked debate in Taiwan about the mainland's jurisdiction in the case. Mainland authorities said Taiwan has been too lenient in its handling telecom fraudsters in the past.
In many of the cases handled by Taiwan's judicial organs, suspects were not brought to justice and victims on the mainland were unable to retrieve their lost money, according to the Ministry of Public Security.
Quite a few Taiwanese suspects were released as soon as they were returned to Taiwan and some resumed their wrongdoing soon after, said Liu Huawen, assistant director of the Institute of International Law under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
"They have caused a tremendous loss to people on the Chinese mainland," said Liu.
"Telecom fraud has been regarded as quite a petty act of swindling in Taiwan, with short prison sentences and light financial penalties," said Fan Chongyi, a professor at China University of Political Science and Law.
Taiwanese authorities should be tougher on such criminals, Fan said. - Xinhua
