Oli Wong
The Supreme Court rendered the 109-Tai-Shang-117-Zi Decision of March 19, 2020 (hereinafter, the “Decision”), holding that evidence cited to support the finding of criminal facts should be admissible and obtained through a lawful investigation procedure in order to be admitted as legally appropriate evidence.
According to the facts underlying this Decision, Defendant A joined a fraud ring which is a continuous, profit-seeking and structural criminal organization Defendants B, C and D were associated with. They engaged in fraud with a division of labor among at least three individuals and the proceeds of fraud were designated to be remitted into dummy accounts they had obtained before being withdrawn by the money mules and submitted to the fraud ring. By doing so, they created cut-off points for the flow of money to cover up the characteristics and flows of the proceeds of fraud. In particular, A served as the “money mule” of the fraud ring to withdraw the illicit money, B was the “computer operator” in charge of the custody of the ATM cards for the accounts into which the proceeds of fraud are remitted and checking the balances in these accounts, and C was in charge of collecting money from A, who was the money mule, before handing it over to D, the person immediately above him in the chain who would than give the money to another person above him in the chain (whose name and age are unknown). It was agreed that A would be paid by day, while the compensation of B and C was calculated by 0.3% of the amounts withdrawn.
According to this Decision, the evidence cited to support criminal facts should be both admissible and obtained through a lawful investigation procedure in order to be admitted as legally appropriate evidence. In addition, the facts determined and the evidence and reasons indicated in a guilty decision should be mutually consistent. Otherwise, there would be a contradictions between evidence and reasons.
It was further pointed out in this Decision that Article 12 of the Organized Crime Prevention Statute that a witness’s interrogation record before the police shall not serve as evidence for the offenses the defendants allegedly committed under the Organized Crime Prevention Statute. However, in the reasons of the original decision, the statements of the witnesses given during police interrogation were cited as the basis for the finding that the three defendants violated the Organized Crime Prevention Statute. Since the descriptions of the reasons are inconsistent throughout, the reasons of the decision are certainly contradictory. Also, there is unlawful for violation of evidentiary rules. The matters mentioned in the gist of the appeal are valid. The Supreme Court held that this portion should be reversed and thus remanded it to the original trial court.