Investigation“Swiss Secrets” | A leader of the ruling party in Taipei, at the time the contract was signed, had opened an account in Zurich. Information that could have shed light on the case, closed in 2008.
Thirteen years after the closure, in 2008, of the legal proceedings in the Taiwan frigates affair, the “Swiss Secrets” investigation brings a new element to this file, which is one of the biggest political and financial scandals of the Vand Republic. And the most flammable. This arms contract signed in 1991 between France and Taiwan, which saw the company Thomson-CSF associated with the Direction des constructions navales (controlled by the State) sell six warships to Taiwan for more than 2.5 billion of dollars, is indeed tainted with corruption. Judicial investigations in Switzerland and France established, in the 2000s, that 500 million dollars in commissions were paid by Thomson (now Thales) to an intermediary, to win this ultra-sensitive political contract, inflating the price of final sale.
But the central question of the case remained unresolved: for whom were these commissions intended, managed by the intermediary recruited to facilitate the sale, Andrew Wang, and paid into accounts in Switzerland? In 2001, former socialist foreign minister Roland Dumas claimed that Taiwanese and Chinese officials had received money. The former Minister of Defense Alain Richard had even mentioned possible kickbacks in France. However, despite extensive investigations into the Swiss accounts of the Wang family, French justice had come up against a wall in identifying the beneficiaries of these commissions: the defense secret brandished by France, which no left-wing minister neither right wanted to raise. For lack of names and evidence, the proceedings had been filed.
However, among the thousands of bank accounts affected by the Credit Suisse data leak, one of them attracts attention. Its holder: James Soong Chu-yu. This prominent politician in Taiwan held the post of secretary general of the Kuomintang, the island’s ruling party, when the contract for the frigates was signed. In 2003, Roland Dumas had appointed the general secretariat of the nationalist party as one of the beneficiaries of the commissions. The date of opening of his account: June 11, 1993, two years after the signing of the contract, and at the very moment when the illicit commissions began to be paid. Mr. Soong had just left the party leadership. The account was not closed until 2010, and its balance exceeded 13 million Swiss francs (8.3 million euros) in the mid-2000s – an amount that his civil servant salary alone struggles to explain.
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