A Chinese mainland spokesman on Saturday urged Taiwan to give fraud suspects "the punishment they deserve," stressing that the release of them will only make fraud more rampant and harm cross-Strait law enforcement cooperation.
Taiwan police earlier on Saturday released 20 fraud suspects who were deported from Malaysia Friday evening, citing a lack of evidence. They were among 52 people from Taiwan arrested in Malaysia for suspected telecommunication fraud.
"By releasing the suspects, Taiwan authorities disregarded many victims' interests and harmed them a second time. It also harmed the two sides' cooperation in jointly cracking down on crimes," said An Fengshan, the spokesman with the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office.
Late last month, Malaysian and Chinese mainland police cooperated on an investigation into five transnational telecommunication fraud cases involving victims on the mainland, and arrested a total of 119 suspects, including 65 from the mainland, 52 from Taiwan and two from Malaysia.
The spokesman urged Taiwan to "immediately rectify their mistakes, eliminate the adverse impact, seriously pursue these suspects' wrongdoings and give them the punishment they deserve," so as to protect the victims' interests and prevent greater damage to the development of cross-Strait relations.
Syndicates led by suspects from Taiwan and based in Southeast Asia, Africa and Oceania have been falsely presenting themselves as law enforcement officers to extort money from people on the Chinese mainland through telephone calls, according to the police.
In the past few years, police from the mainland and Taiwan have arrested more than 7,700 suspects, about 4,600 from Taiwan, in 47 joint operations to fight telecom fraud based in Southeast Asia.
In many cases handled by Taiwan judicial organs, Taiwan suspects were not brought to justice and victims on the mainland were unable to retrieve their lost money, An said earlier this week.
Kenyan police deported 77 Chinese telecom fraud suspects, including 45 Taiwanese, to the Chinese mainland over the past week.
