True Crime: the Justin Lee case

While the rest of the world is riveted on the Senkakus, Taiwan has been riveted by the Justin Lee case.

Justin Lee (李宗瑞), who is wanted by prosecutors for allegedly raping a woman and filming bedroom trysts with a number of celebrities and models, turned himself in last night.

......

The case has attracted widespread attention after investigators said there could be more than 40 victims, including showbiz performers, models and A-list actresses.

The scandal sparked a media frenzy because Lee is the son of Lee Yueh-tsang (李岳蒼), a board member of Yuanta Financial Holding Co (元大金控). Lee Yueh-tsang on Monday last week resigned from the company, reportedly because of the scandal.

Media frenzy! Half of Taiwan's actresses, the lurid talk show hosts claim, are waiting in agony to see whether their images will surface. The alleged girlfriend of Lee, who allegedly was hiding him in Pingtung somewhere, according to many media reports, was also wanted for drug dealing. Daddy Lee, big board member, also had a passel of children by several women, the media has reported in its best moralizing style. The media has also had fun questioning women about their relationships with him. News videos with animation here and here.

Videos of celebrities, surfacing. Surfacing how? Somebody needs to pursue the strange phenomenon of material that should be part of the investigation being made available to the public in case after case.

More tawdry: a senior police official busted in bribe case.

The prosecutors said that they were tipped off earlier this year that operators of an illegal casino, which usually moved venues between Zhongshan District in Taipei City and Sanchong District in New Taipei City, had regularly wined and dined law enforcement officers in the precincts and paid them bribes in exchange for covering up their illegal activities.

During the investigation of the bribe-taking case, while tapping the phone of a CIB police official surnamed Huang, who allegedly took bribes, the prosecutors were surprised to discover that Huang had duly reported back to his superior, i.e, Hsu Jui-shan, chief secretary of the CIB.

Hsu, who has been part of the police force for over 20 years, rose from the ranks. He has been regarded as a rising star, so his involvement in the scandal took many people by surprise.

Cases like this, so common, show, as if further demonstration were needed, the intimate links between local police and major organized crime operations. Hsu was even the head of the cross-strait crime-fighing unit..... if only the media had frenzies over this kind of system corruption...
_______________________
[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.