“Ben” 
Someone has a sense of humor.
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It’s interesting, in the West one would be considered a victim and once the cops prove they were unwitting there would be no charges since there was no intent. This guanggao seems to indicate even if ‘Ben’ was an unwitting victim, he’s still going to jail, fined, and then getting deported.
Well, he agreed to be paid a high amount for something that sounds pretty suspicious. It’s hard to say. For comparison the OP here agreed to simple currency exchange transactions. Assuming there was no high premium or anything I guess.
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I was more speaking to the ad. I’ve heard of some really dumb transactions people agreed too, swindled out of their life savings. Even people with high IQ can be conned so it’s not always that they are dumb (perhaps their EQ is low). Hopefully the cops in Taiwan would see nuance if someone was legitimately conned.
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I feel there’s a lot of victim blaming when it comes to scams. For example they always say people got swindled because of greed, or in the case of being charged with theft for buying stolen properties, the price he paid was too good to be true or whatever. But I think it’s like a judge asking a rape victim what was she wearing.
Keep in mind people can fence stolen properties at reasonable prices, which is why there are good faith laws.
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Ok just to update my story, I realised that I’ve got the year totally wrong 
It wasn’t August last year, it was August 2021 - and the June document was June LAST year.
I called her earlier to ask how it went and, yes, I’ve missed a whole year worth.
So last June was the first court date, but it didn’t reach a conclusion then - the case is actually still going. Her bank accounts are still frozen.
She says that hopefully tomorrow is the last time she will need to go to court, but she has her lawyer so “it’s not a big deal now” - so seems like everything is ok.
I’ll try and remember to post next week when hopefully it will all be over.
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Apparently the judge was very mean today and wants to have another appearance on July 6.
2 years 2 months jail time, 1,000,000nt fine
She’s replaced her lawyer and they are appealing the sentence.
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Damn, that sounds really harsh - especially given that she was the one who got suspicious and reported to the police…
I think some companies caught polluting the environment, employers screwing over their workers or restaurants serving expired or bad food got away with much lower fines (monetary alone) - and those are often businesses with hundreds of millions of revenue per year…
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I thought so too, so asked her if she really had told me the whole story.
She said yes, but the judge and the prosecutor don’t believe her. I guess they thought she got cold feet after doing it, so was trying to cover her tracks?
Next hearing will be some time around October.
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Ouch. I think there are two incidents with two different people in this thread. This is the one who took cash out and then physically gave it to someone?
Yeah, kind of hard to see the bright side of your friend’s dilemma. She done messed up, Ay-Aron.
Wow the sentence alone sounds pretty overzealous. Even the monetary fine seems to be over 10x of whatever she could have gained financially, and the guidelines for fines in tax evasion aren’t anywhere close to this
Yeah, it’s hard to see the logic with some of these fines. That’s almost enough to pay the fine for illegally making 4000 people work unpaid overtime!
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What is the justification for the harsh sentence, and what is the legally mandated minimum for such a “crime”?
Usually when they sentence you they have to write a justification.
Also is the sentence suspended? It’s not unusual, especially for a first conviction, to impose a very harsh sentence and then suspend it. Then it would be probation-like thing where if you don’t break the condition, the sentence is not carried out.
Need to see the judgment/commitment document to know what’s up. Also we don’t know the circumstance behind it and what the charge is exactly.
Otherwise, OP should really be asking questions to his lawyer.
Criminal Code of the Republic of China
Article 339-4
A person who commits the offense of fraud under Article 339 and who has any of the following events shall be sentenced to imprisonment for no less than one year and no more than seven years; in addition thereto, a fine of no more than one million yuan may be imposed:
- Offense in the name of a government agency or public official without authorization.
- Offense by three or more persons.
- Offense by dissemination of false information to the general public through broadcasting TV, electronic communication, Internet or other media.
An attempt to commit an offense specified in the preceding paragraph is punishable.
Organized Crime Prevention Act
Article 3
The person initiating, hosting, controlling or directing a criminal organization must be sentenced to imprisonment for not less than three years but not more than ten years; in addition thereto, a fine of not more than TWD 100,000,000 may be imposed; a participant of such criminal organization shall be sentenced to imprisonment for not less than six months but not more than five years; in addition thereto, a fine of not more than TWD 10,000,000 may be imposed. Nevertheless, where the level of participation is considered minor, the punishment may be reduced or omitted.
Money Laundering Control Act
Article 14
Anyone involved in money laundering activities prescribed in paragraphs in Article 2 shall be sentenced to imprisonment of not more than seven years; in addition, a fine of not more than NT$ 5 million shall be imposed.
An attempt to commit an offense specified in the preceding paragraph is punishable.
In circumstance prescribed in the preceding two paragraphs, the penalty may not exceed the maximum punishment administered for the specified unlawful activity.
The fine is to compensate the other scam victims who had transferred the money into her account (that she then withdrew and gave to the bad guys)
Won’t know unless you see the judgment and commitment document, it lists the sentence imposed as well as justification for such sentence. Seeing the penalty seems to be rather high, or is more than minimum the justification will say why such a sentence is warranted. If you are appealing then the justification is important.
But it seems like this can only possibly be argued to be appropriate if the law believes she knew she was receiving dirty money, right? Otherwise, she’s basically being made to bear the entire cost (and more) of the mistakes made by both her and the other victim.
This is the one who didn’t make enough and tried to make it look like she did?
Dude, she’s in the wrong and culpable. The fact that others were involved doesn’t exonerate her in any way. “Oh, I didn’t understand the scam I entered willingly would involve or financially damage other people, yer honor.”
That’s a hard sell. I don’t enjoy watching someone contort like this, but she seems to not understand what or why what she did was wrong, now knows it’s wrong ONLY because she got caught, and wants to be released from penalty and punishment, because she didn’t know?
A hard cell indeed.
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It’s kinda like scamception. She thought she was borrowing from a legit company and just paying them back.
In reality, the illegitimate company were scamming people and making them pay into her account, which she then had to give back to the illegitimate company.
Unwittingly becoming a money mule.