Taiwan Officials Head For China To Discuss Telecom Scams

Taiwanese officials will travel to diplomatic rival China on Wednesday to discuss two cases of telecoms fraud, one of which led to 45 Taiwan nationals being deported to China from Kenya, infuriating Taipei.

The officials hoped to establish a way to jointly investigate the two cases, in which the scams were conducted from a third country, and visit the detained Taiwanese, the Taiwan Justice Ministry said on Tuesday.

Taiwan has been in uproar since Kenya forcibly deported the 45 nationals to China this month.

China regards self-ruled Taiwan as a wayward province and Kenya said it was deporting the 45 back to where they came from. Kenya does not have official relations with democratic Taiwan and considers the island part of “one China”, in line with the position of Communist Party leaders in Beijing.

Over the weekend, China slammed Taiwan for freeing 20 Taiwanese suspects deported to the island from Malaysia in a separate telecom fraud case linked to China. Taiwan has said it had no evidence to detain the individuals.

China’s Ministry of Public Security said last week Taiwanese had been heavily involved in telecoms fraud in China and had caused huge losses.

Taiwanese criminals “have been falsely presenting themselves as law enforcement officers to extort money from people on the Chinese mainland through telephone calls”, the ministry added.

REUTERS