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MOFA seeking to reclaim assets
SINGAPORE’S AID SOUGHT: Ching Chi-ju and Wu Shih-tsai were
given US$30 million in 2006 in a failed attempt to seek diplomatic ties with
Papua New Guinea
By Shih Hsiu-chuan
STAFF REPORTER
Tuesday, May 11, 2010, Page 1
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday said it would ask the Singapore
Supreme Court to carry out a compulsory acquisition of diplomatic broker Ching
Chi-ju’s (金紀玖) assets after the court yesterday ruled that Taiwan can claim
US$29.8 million from him in the high-profile Papua New Guinea diplomatic fraud
case.
In 2006, Ching, a Republic of China national who holds a US passport, and Wu
Shih-tsai (吳思材), a Singaporean national, acted as middlemen in a failed attempt
to seek diplomatic ties with Papua New Guinea initiated by the then-Democratic
Progressive Party government.
Under the deal, the ministry remitted US$30 million into a Singapore bank
account opened by Ching and Wu in September 2006, with US$200,000 to be used as
spending money by the duo.
The DPP government decided to abandon the talks after they fell through in
October 2006 and Ching was to return the money in December 2006, but Ching went
missing and so did the money.
In 2008, the ministry filed a complaint against Ching and Wu with Singapore’s
Supreme Court, claiming the two had used the money for their own purposes rather
than on the establishment of diplomatic relations with Papua New Guinea.
In December last year, the Singapore High Court ruled in favor of Taiwan and
demanded that Ching return US$29.8 million.
Although Ching could file an appeal against the latest ruling, the court gave
Taiwan the right to impound his assets.
“Despite the appeal clause, the foreign ministry will demand that the court
seize [Ching’s] assets in accordance with Singaporean law as soon as possible,”
said Chen Shou-han (陳首瀚), section chief of the ministry’s Department of Treaty
and Legal Affairs, who attended the lawsuit on behalf of the ministry.
“The foreign ministy’s position on the matter is clear. We will make every
effort to retrieve the money, not only from Singapore, but from any other
countries where the money was placed,” ministry spokesman Henry Chen (陳銘政) told
a press conference yesterday.
An official, who wished not to be named, said the ministry was confident that it
could retrieve a third of the money, about US$10.5 million, from Singapore,
including US$6 million from Ching’s bank account, which has been frozen by the
court and US$3 million from Wu’s bank account, on top of the NT$50 million
(US$1.5 million) Wu returned to the ministry at the end of last year.
In related news, both the ministry and the American Institute in Taiwan
yesterday refused to comment on a report in the United Daily News claiming that
US officials from the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs
Enforcement Agency recently visited to assist the government in recovering money
held overseas.
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