Taipei, July 18 (CNA) A fugitive Taiwanese couple has been extradited from Thailand more than 20 years after being indicted over an alleged NT$4 billion (US$129.2 million) investment fraud, the Investigation Bureau said Tuesday.
In a statement, the Investigation Bureau said that Chen Chih-Tsan (陳智燦), 64, and Liu Mei-hsueh (劉美雪), 57, were escorted back to Taoyuan International Airport by Investigation Bureau officers from Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok.
The married couple, who fled Taiwan in October 2001, stands accused of using a fictitious company to defraud more than 4,000 investors, Lee Ching-hsien (李青憲), an Investigation Bureau official, told reporters.
The bureau said that a month after leaving Taiwan, the couple stopped paying returns to investors, claiming that the bank’s accounts in Latvia had been frozen.
The bureau said that the couple first went to China before acquiring Belizean passports and resurfacing in Thailand under new names in July 2018.
Thai authorities’ suspicions about Chen and Liu — now using the given names “Golden” and “Miuki” — were first raised when the couple applied for permanent residency on June 21 this year.
The Investigation Bureau said that after crossreferencing fingerprints and warrants provided by the authorities in Taiwan, Thai police arrested Chen and Liu at the couple’s Bangkok apartment on June 24.
The bureau said that Chen and Liu’s case had been handed over to the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors’ Office for further investigation.
