Former investigator admits giving Chen Shui-bian money-laundering file
Staff Reporter 2012-09-15 12:17 (GMT+8)
Yeh Sheng-mao is released on bail, Sept. 13. (File photo/Chen Chun-wei)
The former director-general of Taiwan's Bureau of Investigation, Yeh Sheng-mao, has confessed to prosecutors that in 2008 he leaked a file implicating the country's then-president Chen Shui-bian in money-laundering activities to the president instead of handing it directly to the prosecutor-general, our sister newspaper China Times reported on Sept. 14.
"Yeh has confessed to prosecutors that he was following former president Chen Shui-bian's orders to leak classified information to him," the newspaper reported. Yeh was charged with leaking classified information as a law enforcement officer. The verdict in the case will be delivered on Sept. 20.
China Times quoted an anonymous prosecutor who said, "Yeh must have been through a hard time before he leaked the information to Chen."
The Egmont Group of Financial Intelligence Units, the international anti-money laundering organization, in January 2008 delivered a report to the bureau in which its Cayman Islands unit raised the suspicion that the former first family was laundering money through an account created under the name of Chen's daughter-in-law, Huang Jui-ching, at a Merrill Lynch bank in Geneva, Switzerland.
Using the report, the bureau's anti-money laundering center on Jan. 29 of that year compiled a file intended for delivery to Taiwan's Supreme Prosecutors' Office.
Yeh later requested that the file be handed to him, saying that he would pass it to then-prosecutor-general Chen Tsung-ming in person. Instead of giving the file to Chen Tsung-ming, Yeh leaked it to the former president during a visit to the Presidential Office on Jan. 31 or Feb. 1.
"There had never been any corrupt president prior to Chen's case. Yeh had to make his decision under certain circumstances and [his actions] can be understood," the prosecutor said.
Chen Shui-bian, who served two terms as Taiwan's president from 2000-2008, is currently serving a 17-and-a-half jail term for corruption during his time in office.
