Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/06/21
By: Christie Chen and Huang Kuo-fang
Taipei, June 21 (CNA) Twenty-two Taiwanese nationals, 14 of whom are former citizens of Vietnam,
(File photo courtesy of the National Immigration Agency)
were charged Monday with forging birth certificates to bring Vietnamese children and youths to Taiwan, the Yunlin District Prosecutors’ Office announced Wednesday.
Prosecutors began investigating the case last year after the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported a suspicious case in which a child who was supposed to have been born to a Taiwanese father and a Vietnamese Taiwanese mother was actually born in Vietnam, while the mother was in Taiwan.
After months of investigation, prosecutors found that 14 Vietnamese Taiwanese nationals each paid between US$3,000 and US$7,000 to brokers in Vietnam between 2013 and 2016 for fake birth certificates for 17 children of their Vietnamese families and relatives, so that the children could be disguised as their own and obtain Taiwanese passports, the prosecutors said.
Officials did not approve passport applications for three of the children and youths because they found something suspicious during the process, but 14 were allowed to enter Taiwan and 11 eventually obtained Taiwanese citizenship, the prosecutors said. [FULL STORY]
