A Taiwanese couple was detained by Thai immigration officials upon entering Thailand, according to Taiwanese media outlets. The couple had been evading authorities for more than 20 years after organizing a fraud that cost Taiwanese victims more than THB 4 billion, or around USD 114 million.
On June 29, Thai police stated that they were still awaiting authorization to deliver this couple to Taiwanese authorities for additional legal proceedings.
The Office of Economic and Cultural Affairs in Taipei, Taiwan, provided a tip that the Thai Immigration Department’s detectives used to successfully arrest the pair. In order to lure investors with promises of large profits, it was discovered that Chen, Chih-Tsan, 64, and Liu, Mei-Hsueh, 57, along with 12 other collaborators, caused considerable losses for their Taiwanese victims. There have already been arrests of other suspects.
The pair had founded a business called Lien-chin-wen and represented it as a branch of the well-known international financial firm Richmond. Numerous people expressed interest in investing as a result of the scam’s widespread notice in Taiwan, especially given the misleading relationship with Richmond. The whole losses added up to THB 4 billion.
After closing the company, the pair has avoided Taiwan for the past 20 years. They went to Belize, a little coastal state in North America, and got new identities. Through investments, they were able to get Belizean citizenship and passports, adopt new identities, and relocate there.
In 2018, they traveled to Thailand using their Belizean passports. After arriving, they applied to join the Thailand Privilege Card program, which allowed them to modify their visa type to a Privilege Entry (PE) visa. They hid in a posh apartment building in the Bang Na neighborhood.
Later, the couple’s visas were revoked after Thai police learned that they were the same individuals sought by Taiwanese authorities. They purchased flight tickets and made travel arrangements to Singapore as soon as they learned about the loss of the visa. However, the cops detained them at the apartment building’s parking lot.
Following her arrest, investigators from the Thai Special Investigations Division and the director of the Taiwan National Police Agency’s International Crime Coordination Division questioned her further about her financial dealings and other assets, including any connections to the nominee network in Thailand.
Investigations conducted thus far have turned up valuable real estate, including a luxury condo valued at 15 million baht, as well as roughly 2 million baht in cash in bank accounts.
