Taiwanese actor Darren Wang, also known as Talu Wang, was sentenced to six months’ jail commutable to a fine by the New Taipei District Court yesterday (April 22) for breaching the Personal Data Protection Act in a case linked to his alleged draft evasion scandal.
According to media reports, the 34-year-old had paid the ringleader of an illegal group – surnamed Chen – NT$3.6 million (S$145,000) to falsify medical documents to help him evade compulsory military service. However, Darren subsequently lost contact with Chen as the latter had been detained on separate fraud charges.
Chen has also been accused of assisting other Taiwanese celebrities in evading military service, including Chen Bolin, Hsiu Chieh-kai and Energy’s Shuwei.
Darren then asked a friend named Yu Hsiang-min to reach out to police officer Liu Chu-jung, then the acting captain of the Third Investigation Division of the Taipei Police Department’s Criminal Investigation Division, to use his position to obtain personal information on Chen.
Liu later handed the data over to Darren.
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Darren’s girlfriend, livestreamer Chueh Mu Hsuan, was also sentenced to six months’ jail commutable to a fine, for a separate incident.
According to Taiwanese reports, Chueh was defrauded of over NT$4 million by a man surnamed Pan. Darren allegedly sought out Chen Tzu-chun from organised crime group Four Seas Gang to gather the personal data of Pan and his relatives from a land administration agent.
Prosecutors indicted Darren, Chueh, Yu, Liu, Chen Tzu-chun, and others on charges including document forgery, leaking confidential information and contraventions of the Personal Data Protection Act.
Darren denied the charges and told the court that he did not directly contact the gang to obtain others’ personal data.
Liu was sentenced to one year and four months for document forgery. Yu and Chen Tzu-chun were each sentenced to three months in jail, commutable to a fine.
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kristy.chua@asiaone.com
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