President Lai Ching-te wants police to try harder to fight scams, including those in the cryptocurrency world. But some police feel they're already stretched thin amid a wave of fraud.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Police arrest a suspected scammer, part of a big push to tackle a wave of fraud that's
00:08hit Taiwan in recent years.
00:10But by the government's count, most scammers never face justice.
00:14President Lai Ching-de says fewer than 10% of recent fraud cases have even been cracked,
00:20and he wants police to try harder.
00:23Some of the toughest cases to crack involve cryptocurrency, favoured by criminals as a
00:27tool for laundering money.
00:29Police have been able to regain some funds, thanks to a partnership with four exchanges
00:33launched last year.
00:35This man, identified only with the initial W, is one of 32 fraud victims who are starting
00:41to get back a combined US$336,000, thanks to this teamwork.
00:46I'm very happy, because at least we can get some of the money back, around 3-4 million
00:52dollars.
00:53We can get some of our commission, and some of the money from the house, and so on.
00:57Scammers say they are on the alert for suspicious transactions.
01:10But happy endings are far from typical, and even in the case of W and his fellow victims,
01:15the scammers themselves remain free.
01:17Still, some police say they're already stretched thin with scams, with tens of thousands of
01:22reports each year, and that pressure to do more is unreasonable.
01:27The new president also said that he is not very satisfied with the current results, and
01:30that there is still a lot of room for improvement.
01:32I think this is an insult to all police officers.
01:35As tension builds between some police and top government officials, scammers continue
01:40stealing with impunity across Taiwan and the wider region, creating a headache for both
01:45those who make the law and those who enforce it.
01:48Phu Hoa Hong and John Van Triest for Taiwan Plus.