A city councilor is now sentenced to 6 years in prison for stock manipulation and misrepresentation in a company in Taiwan.
Former Taipei City Councilor Chen Cheng-chung, aged 69, has reported to prison to begin serving a 6-year sentence.
Chen was convicted of stock manipulation and misrepresentation in a company prospectus.
Chen had served as a city councilor for nearly 40 years, but was forced to give up his post in July.
On Tuesday, he arrived at the Taiwan Taipei District Prosecutors Office around 90 minutes later than the scheduled 10:30 am report time.
Chen did not make any public comments before turning himself over to prosecutors to be jailed, per Focus Taiwan.
He was wearing a white cap, white polo shirt, and a face mask.
Chen’s prison sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court last month, after he unsuccessfully appealed a combined 6-year sentence issued by the High Court.
The High Court had sentenced him to 4 years specifically for manipulating the stock of Hongfu Construction, a property development company he founded and held a key stake in.
The court also sentenced Chen to an additional 2 years in jail for providing false or misleading information in a company prospectus that was part of Hongfu Construction’s application for a public offering.
The Supreme Court, in announcing its final verdict on Chen’s appeal, stated that prosecutors should take measures to prevent Chen from attempting to escape.
The case against Chen dates back to 2001, when the Taipei District Prosecutors Office first indicted him for crimes including breach of trust, fraud, business misappropriation, and violations of the Securities and Exchange Act.
Chen was accused of hollowing out Hongfu Construction’s assets and stealing up to NT$6 billion (around $183 million USD) from the company since 1993.
This was during his tenure of serving 10 terms as a Taipei City councilor since 1985.
In the initial 2006 trial, the Taipei District Court had handed down a 20-year sentence for Chen’s crimes.
This was later reduced to 9 years by the High Court.
Since then, Chen has appealed his case multiple times, with varying outcomes of wins and losses in the retrials over the years.
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Also Read: Foreign Markets Are Now Imposing Bans For Illegal Trading
Other Market News Today
Massive trading platforms are now reportedly facing outages as Wall Street and the crypto market experience a meltdown.
Several major online trading platforms were down Monday as Wall Street suffered a massive meltdown, according to outage tracking website Downdetector.com.
Charles Schwab, Fidelity, Vanguard and TD Ameritrade were among those heavily impacted, the site showed.
Tens of thousands of people reported an outage from Charles Schwab throughout most of the trading day on Monday.
Reuters reports that Charles Schwab and Fidelity Investments have now resolved their technical issues with their apps, on a day users rushed to trade as markets slumped on rising fears of a U.S. recession.
Many customers across several of these trading platforms struggled to log in to their accounts.
Wall Street’s main indexes as well as the crypto market have plunged as weak economic data, lower than expected quarterly earnings from tech giants and geopolitical tensions dampened hopes of a soft landing.
Goldman Sachs has viewed the markets volatility as a healthy correction rather than a crash.
Bitcoin price fell below $50K on Monday for a moment, scaling back more than 16% from its price of $65K in the past week.
The broad markets, including the S&P 500 and Nasdaq have also experience 5%-6% dips.
Goldman Sachs has issued a reassuring statement regarding the recent market volatility, emphasizing that the present dip is a healthy correction rather than a crash.
The cryptocurrency market has been volatile recently, with Bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies experiencing high fluctuations.
“Several factors have contributed to the volatility, but these factors also provide opportunities for smart traders.
For instance, although the geopolitical unrest has had an impact on the price of Bitcoin, this volatility can be exploited for short-term gains through swing trading,” reports Cryptonews.net.
The markets seem to be in a state of chaos at the moment.
How long traders remain in this shroud of uncertainty is something only time will tell.
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What are your thoughts on its current state?
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Also Read: Here Are What Experts Are Now Saying About Bitcoin’s Plunge
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