The Keelung District Prosecutor's Office investigated the case of Keelung City Councilor Zeng Jiyan and Keelung City Government officials involving corruption and bid-rigging for street lighting projects. The investigation was concluded today (5th). The prosecutor determined that Keelung City Renai District Councilor Zeng Jiyan was suspected of accepting NT$1.33 million in bribes from business operators, and that the source of more than NT$16.88 million in property was unknown. Four other civil servants, including Public Works Department Section Chief Gu Shengxuan, were suspected of accepting bribes, leaking secrets, and profiteering. They were all prosecuted under the Corruption Offenses Act, accepting bribes, and violating the Government Procurement Act. The entire case was transferred to the Keelung District Court for trial.
Since Zeng Jiyan was charged with a felony involving bribery under the Corruption Crime Ordinance, which carries a prison sentence of more than 10 years, this case was included in the scope of the National Judges Act in January this year. This case became the first case in Keelung that the National Judges Act was applied.
The indictment pointed out that when Zeng Jiyan was serving as a member of the 20th Keelung City Council, business owner He Peishen hinted at providing funding to Zeng Nan in order to successfully obtain the "Member Suggestion Fund" project and speed up the bid acceptance funding. After Zeng Jiyan agreed, from April 2023 to June this year, he successively collected a total of 1.33 million yuan in bribes from the accountants of He Nan Company, and helped to pay attention to the progress of the acceptance.
In addition, prosecutors reviewed Zeng's account and found that Zeng Jiyan's spouse, surnamed Wu, frequently deposited cash at the counter or in small amounts during the same period, amounting to 16.884987 yuan. After deducting the monthly salary of the two people totaling about 130,000 yuan and daily expenses, the increase in property was obviously not commensurate with the income. Zeng Nan could only explain the source of 1.65 million yuan of it, but could not provide a reasonable explanation for the rest, and was involved in the crime of unknown source of property.
Prosecutors found that the case also involved a number of street lighting and disaster prevention project fraud cases involving the Keelung City Government. Yang Hongqi, an employee of the Procurement Center of the Comprehensive Development Office of the Keelung City Government, was suspected of leaking bidder information to the operator He Peishen one day before the bid opening by using hand gestures, nodding, or inserting a pen in his breast pocket and other secret signs when he was responsible for collecting the bidding documents for the street light project, and accepted a bribe of 90,000 yuan.
Gu Shengxuan, the head of the Public Utilities Section of the Public Works Department, asked for NT$150,000 from Ho Pei-shen before he was promoted because of accumulated credit card debt. After being promoted, he assisted in the appraisal and requested payment smoothly. Over the years, he has collected a total of NT$3.55 million in bribes. At the end of last year, he even sent the unit price budget document file of the street lighting project directly to Ho Nan through LINE to help him calculate the actuarial amount and win the bid. Fu Junsheng, the former chief of the Utilization Management Section of the Metropolitan Development Bureau (currently the director of the Zhongzheng District Office), and Chen Nanhong, a contract employee, are suspected of knowing that when handling cases such as the post-typhoon Santoer emergency repair project and the mountain wall protection project, they knew that the operator had borrowed the license to bid and falsely reported the budget amount, but still cooperated with the negotiation or failed to terminate the contract in accordance with regulations, allowing the operator to make millions of dollars in profits. Fu Nan is also suspected of accepting bribes of more than 230,000 yuan and reporting bidding information in advance.
The prosecutor also found that between 2023 and 2024, business owner He Peishen and accountant Hong Meixiang purchased 15 copies of ID cards at a cost of 7,000 to 8,000 yuan each, and falsely published salary withholding vouchers to declare profit-making enterprise income tax, inflating business costs and evading taxes.
Prosecutors Chen Yimin and Chen Shuling considered that Gu Shengxuan and other civil servants had corrupted the official position and undermined the fairness of procurement, and launched a public prosecution against Zeng Jiyan, Gu Shengxuan, Yang Hongqi, Fu Junsheng, Chen Nanhong, He Peishen, Hong Meixiang and Qian Taifeng Construction Co., Ltd. in accordance with the law.
