The man, Lin Weiliang, was involved in the illegal media that since 2018, missing Indonesian migrant workers have worked as caregivers for their employers, rented houses and set up dormitories for centralized management, and even collaborated with missing Indonesian migrant workers to recruit fellow villagers to join them through the popular social platform "TikTok", 7 Over the past year, a total of more than 40.69 million yuan has been collected from employers. The New Taipei District Prosecutor's Office today prosecuted Mr. Lin and two female Indonesian accomplices for violating the "Employment Services Act". Considering that Mr. Lin seriously disrupted the order of my country's employment services and migrant worker management, he requested a sentence of three years and a fine of 1.2 million yuan.
Prosecutors' investigation revealed that since September 2018, Lin Nan had first cooperated with a missing Indonesian migrant worker nicknamed "Mommy." Lin rented a house as a dormitory for migrant workers, and was responsible for contacting employers who needed care, collecting fees, arranging work, and picking up and transporting migrant workers; "Mummy" was responsible for dormitory management (including cleaning, cooking, opening and closing dormitory doors, welcoming new missing migrant workers to the dormitory, translating, etc.).
After "Mommy" returned to Indonesia in April 2023, Indonesian woman ENDANG SULISTIA NINGSIH took over the management of the dormitory, and continued to assist Lin, a migrant worker who had lost contact with the media, to illegally engage in care work with her employer. Lin Nan charged his employer monthly fees ranging from 30,000 yuan to 50,000 yuan, but only paid the missing migrant workers 1,000 yuan a day, taking the huge difference for himself and making huge profits for a long time.
The prosecutor also found that SITI ROBIYAH, another Indonesian defendant, had been using TikTok, a social platform popular with young migrant workers, to publish advertisements since September last year, claiming that he could introduce jobs and provide accommodation for missing migrant workers. He also provided dormitory addresses to those who were willing to find jobs, and assisted in contacting them to move in. Lin Nan and ENDANG would then arrange subsequent accommodation and work media.
In April this year, prosecutor Huang Yufei directed the Mobile Team of the North District Affairs Brigade of the Immigration Department of the Ministry of the Interior, the Taoyuan City Special Task Force and other units to conduct searches and arrests. They seized the defendant ENDANG and eight missing migrant workers in a migrant dormitory in Shulin District, New Taipei City, and seized 461,000 yuan in cash, mobile phones, account books and other evidence.
The prosecutor believed that Mr. Lin had been illegally mediating missing migrant workers for a long time, and that the scale of his crime was huge, which seriously undermined my country's legal employment services and migrant worker management order, and that it was necessary to severely punish him. Therefore, he was prosecuted for the crime of "mediating foreigners to illegally work for others with the intention of making a profit."
The New Taipei Examination calls on employers to abide by the Employment Service Act and relevant laws and regulations when hiring foreign migrant workers, follow legal channels, and do not illegally hire missing migrant workers for temporary convenience. Illegal intermediary activities not only damage the legitimate migrant labor intermediary and employment management systems, but may also lead to a lack of protection for the rights and interests of migrant workers. Prosecutors will continue to work with immigration, police and competent authorities to strictly investigate illegal intermediary and illegal employment activities to maintain legal employment order.
