Taiwanese involved in alleged money extortion deported

By T. Farook Thajudeen

 100 members of an extortion gang from Taiwan who operated from various places in Colombo and its suburbs were deported to their homeland yesterday on a court order.

74 males and 26 females were alleged to have been involved in extorting money from wealthy businessmen in Taiwan by threatening them. They had asked the businessmen to deposit money in banks accounts in Taiwan claiming that they had gotten involved in money laundering and that they would be penalised for the offences unless they deposited the demanded sums in the given accounts of Taiwanese banks.

During the inquiry before Colombo Chief Magistrate Rashmi Singappuli, Simon Lee and Tang Weizhong – Sectional Chief and Vice Chief of Criminal Investigation Bureau of Taiwan and Elvis Leu of Taiwan Interpol Branch of the Crime Investigation Bureau were present in court to take the custody of the suspects.

They told the Magistrate that the suspects would be arrested on arrival in Taiwan on arrest warrants. Subsequent to investigating the charges, they would be dealt with according to the offences committed by them.

The investigations carried out by the Sri Lanka CID had revealed that the suspects who had taken apartments on rent in Colombo 5, Rajagiriya and Battaramulla had operated from eight locations and extorted money by threatening the Taiwan businessmen. The suspects had hacked the e-mail addresses of wealthy businessmen in Taiwan and accessed accumulating information of the bank accounts. They would later threaten the businessmen to deposit various sums of cash in the bank accounts given by the suspects to the businessmen. The suspects had told the victims that if they did not deposit the money, they would be punished for money laundering.