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Taiwan police on Aug. 20 announced that they had caught two suspects who scammed investors out of NT$1 billion (US$30.6 million), reports our Chinese-language sister paper China Times.
The Criminal Investigation Bureau in Taipei said that since March, many cases of fraud have been reported by Taiwanese users of Hong Kong-based bitcoin trading platform Mycoin, which was shut down in February by Hong Kong authorities for similar reasons. Two Taiwanese suspects have been charged in connection with the website-related fraud, 47 year old Chen Yun-fei and 39 year old Lu Kuan-wei, who was the former president of the Taoyuan Junior Chamber of Commerce.
Chen and Lu held several events for investors convincing each one to spend NT$1.62 million (US$49,600) for 90 bitcoins and an account with Mycoin's parent company, which would distribute 0.63 of a bitcoin every day for a total value of NT$11,000 (US$337). The investors were told that their investment would be returned to them after just four and a half months. One 40 year old woman reportedly spent over NT$14 million (US$428,700) on such scam. The bureau estimated that the combined amount that investors lost in the scheme exceeds NT$600 million (US$18.3 million).
Another fraud scheme was perpetrated by furniture company Tereachy, which illegally pulled in over NT$400 million (US$12.3 million) over the past five years. Tereachy told investors that Burj Al Arab, a luxury hotel in Dubai, was to set up hotels in Taiwan and was doing fundraising. At least 700 people were taken in by the scam, mostly veterans.
A total of 63 people from Tereachy were arrested by Kaohsiung police, including its president Liang yu-li and CEO Yang Cheng-han, the report said.