7 fraud cases tied to NT$10,000 cash handouts: Interior Ministry

Taipei, Nov. 12 (CNA) Seven fraud cases linked to the distribution of NT$10,000 (US$322) cash government handouts to eligible Taiwanese citizens and permanent foreign residents have been discovered in recent weeks, the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) said Wednesday.

The ministry said that as of Monday, it had removed 56 scam advertisements and suspended 50 accounts involved in fraudulent activity related to the payments, part of measures to alleviate the effects of U.S. tariffs and inflation on the public.

One reported case involved a phishing email that led victims to a website mimicking the government's cash handout website, resulting in unauthorized credit card transactions exceeding NT$50,000, the MOI said.

Four cases involved scammers posing as prosecutors and police, which led to losses of around NT$510,000, NT$840,000, NT$3.2 million, and NT$3.67 million.

Two other cases involved attempts to seize bank accounts but caused no financial losses, according to the MOI.

The Ministry of Finance (MOF) said that people who successfully completed registration or qualified for direct deposit and passed system verification would have the NT$10,000 payment transferred to their accounts on Wednesday.

On Thursday, the Legislative Yuan's Internal Administration Committee will hold a session inviting the MOI, MOF, Ministry of Digital Affairs (MODA), Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC), and Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) to present reports on interagency efforts to combat fraud related to the handout program.

In a written report submitted to the Legislative Yuan, the MOI said that on Sept. 11, the National Police Agency (NPA) instructed police agencies across Taiwan to form task forces to monitor and report fraudulent advertisements, text messages, social media accounts, and websites linked to the program.

The report said the police had worked to block sources of fraudulent information and investigate related cases. Between Sept. 12 and Monday, police reported removing 56 scam advertisements, suspending 50 accounts, and disabling three fake Ministry of Finance websites, the MOI said.

MODA said it has coordinated with the MOF, NPA, FSC, and Taiwan Network Information Center (TWNIC) to create a rapid blocking system for fraudulent websites.

According to MODA, the FSC monitors suspicious websites daily and reports them to the National Treasury Administration (NTA) for verification.

Once a website is confirmed to be fraudulent, the NTA instructs TWNIC to suspend its domain name resolution to prevent public access, MODA said.

MODA added that TWNIC scans new URLs daily to detect high-risk domains similar to "10000.gov.tw," and scam sites are blocked.

To prevent scammers from using domains similar to the government's official cash handout sign-up website, MODA said it preemptively registered for one year 109 domains that could potentially be used for fraud purposes.