Ex-captain charged with corruption sent back to Taiwan

Taipei, March 25 (CNA) A former army captain charged with corruption was repatriated to Taiwan on Tuesday afternoon in a joint mission by Taiwanese and Filipino authorities, according to the Ministry of Justice's Investigation Bureau (MJIB).

The ex-military man, Lee Chen-yu (李振育), had been detained in the Philippines for over a year after he was arrested by Filipino authorities in Cebu in February 2024 based on information from the MJIB that he was a fugitive, an MJIB statement said Tuesday.

The Filipino authorities refused to deport Lee to Taiwan, however, because they mistook him for another fugitive with the same name and needed to investigate whether he was involved in other cases, the MJIB said.

Through the coordination between Taiwan officials in the Philippines and Filipino authorities, Lee was ultimately deported to Taiwan and subsequently arrested by MJIB officials in Taoyuan on Tuesday, the bureau said.

As a project officer for a military unit managing veterans dependents' villages in 2018 and 2019, Lee allegedly presented fake documents to get contractors seeking space in the areas to pay him rent and security deposits, in violation of the Anti-Corruption Act.

The Taoyuan District Prosecutors Office ordered the MJIB to investigate the case, but Lee escaped to the Philippines in March 2020, after which he was listed as a fugitive by the MJIB, the bureau said.

(By Hsieh Hsing-en and Wu Kuan-hsien)

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