TAIPEI: Taiwan said Monday it has arrested and will deport a Chinese couple wanted in their home country for an alleged business fraud involving tens of millions of dollars.
Yeh Yanrong and his wife Ho Ti were detained by immigration officials in the central city of Taichung on December 9.
Yeh in 2008 founded "Jietonka", a prepaid cellphone card store chain headquartered in China's southeastern city of Xiamen. It had 1,400 stores before it went bankrupt last month.
"They were taken into custody on charges of overstaying their visas," Liu Jiu-fu, a spokesman for the immigration agency, told AFP.
The couple, together with their six-year-old daughter, were expected to be deported to the mainland later in the day, Liu said.
Yeh, 30, will be sent back under a joint agreement signed in 2009 between Taiwan and its former rival China.
Liu said the couple fled the mainland in late October before their company unexpectedly went bankrupt. They allegedly stole up to 560 million yuan ($89.66 million) from the business, the spokesman said.
Ties between Taiwan and China, which split in 1949 after a civil war, have been warming since 2008 when Ma Ying-jeou of the Kuomintang party won the presidency on a platform of strengthening trade and tourism links.
But Beijing still sees the island as part of its territory awaiting reunification, by force if necessary. (AFP)
