The Unseen Defendant, A Voice That Needs to Be Heard: Interview Summary of a Dummy Account Case

"My son did not commit fraud; he was scammed!" Mother T'ian said this inside the police station. To prove her son's innocence and run around the courts together with him, this mother—who raised her children single-handedly while playing the role of both father and mother—possessed a gentle yet stern side. Perhaps it was precisely this resilience of weathering storms alone for her child that carried her from having zero legal experience to eventually securing an acquittal in a retrial. But perhaps it also caused her to bear a dual sense of parental guilt toward her child, or perhaps resentment over judicial injustice. Various factors led Mother T'ian to run about everywhere over these seven years. She initially went to the police to report the case, went through two instances of litigation in the middle, and after the judgment became final, petitioned the Control Yuan, finally opening the narrow gate of a retrial and successfully achieving exoneration to restore her son's innocence. Along this journey, aside from exhausting time and effort, the litigation costs were almost equivalent to the price of a small studio apartment in Kaohsiung, all just to obtain a judgment of acquittal. What is admirable is that whenever Mother T'ian needed supporting materials during our conversation, she pulled out documents that had been meticulously classified and organized, with important case files and evidence even laminated for preservation! Mother T'ian smiled with pride and said, "So winning this lawsuit was definitely no accident." Before I could even thoroughly ponder the presumption of innocence, in dubio pro reo (when in doubt, rule for the accused), or the detailed investigation of favorable and unfavorable evidence, Mother T'ian began to recount the twists and turns of these seven years.

Scammed Instead of Finding a Job

In late 2006, T'ian Szu-che (a pseudonym) had just finished his military service. Having graduated from vocational high school, he told his mother that because a close friend got into Fu Jen Catholic University's Department of Philosophy, he also wanted to study there. From March to June, he studied diligently for the entrance exams, registered for the Fu Jen exams in July, and was accepted when results were released in August. However, since the enrollment quota was full, he decided to work part-time while studying to retake the exam next year, and thus began looking for work. In the job search column of the Apple Daily, T'ian Szu-che saw that a "Mr. Lü" was hiring people to sell virtual game items. Since he enjoyed playing online games, he asked his friend for advice. His friend said he had done similar work before and that it was a fairly well-paying job. Hearing this, T'ian Szu-che had no doubts and contacted "Mr. Lü."

"Mr. Lü" stated that their company's employees do not go into an office, but instead promote virtual items at internet cafés. After buyers make a purchase, they must pay in cash on the spot, and the salesperson then deposits the cash into their own account. "Mr. Lü" explained that because there were numerous sales representatives, depositing directly into the company account would be too messy to distinguish whose funds were whose. Therefore, he asked T'ian Szu-che to provide his own account to deposit the sales proceeds, after which the company would make withdrawals from his account. "Mr. Lü" demanded that T'ian Szu-che provide his ATM card account number and password for the company to keep safe, saying: "If you don't dare hand over your account, aren't you untrustworthy and wanting to take the money and run?" "Mr. Lü" also admonished T'ian Szu-che that there had been many scams lately, and to avoid disputes, he should empty his account. In addition, "Mr. Lü" asked T'ian Szu-che to fax a copy of his national ID card to the company so that the company could verify his identity and avoid being scammed itself. Finally, "Mr. Lü" told T'ian Szu-che to call the company every day to check the audit status. A week later, Mr. Lü said the audit was complete and that the ATM card and bankbook must be handed over to the company for safekeeping, and consequently dispatched a staff member to collect them. Afterward, Mr. Lü called to request the ATM card password and instructed him to call the company daily to check the assignment results. Two days later, because T'ian Szu-che fell ill and failed to call the company on time, the company actively called to express concern, which further lowered T'ian Szu-che's guard. T'ian Szu-che, who had just stepped out into society, thought he had found a great job and happily called Mother T'ian, saying, "Mom~ I found a company with pretty good pay!" But actually, without realizing it, he had been phished and fallen into the scam syndicate's trap.

The scam syndicate used T'ian Szu-che's account to collect fraud proceeds and even used his ID and other information to register a Yahoo! Kimo Auction store to conduct online auction fraud. While recounting how his account was defrauded, Mother T'ian could not help complaining, "That account had been open for ten years; I opened it for him when he was in elementary school. If he were the kind of person who sells accounts as the police claimed, he would have sold a newly opened account! Besides, bank accounts were so easy to open back then; if someone wanted to sell them, they would have opened a bunch at once and sold them all together!" Having said this, perhaps recalling all the events over the years, Mother T'ian murmured somewhat sorrowfully, "It's been so many years already, how heartbreaking..." Just as the atmosphere grew heavy, Mother T'ian pulled out a photocopy of the auction webpage that the scam syndicate had applied for using T'ian Szu-che's identity information, pointed at it jokingly, and said, "The scam syndicate chose a terrible nickname." Yet she also expressed helplessly, "This is clearly something the police could have figured out with just a little investigation; I really don't know how things turned out the way they did afterward."

Overwhelming Obstacles in Reporting to the Police

After Mr. Lü's company kept delaying work assignments on the phone, T'ian Szu-che initially didn't think much of it. But after about a week, he called Mother T'ian, and after discussing it with her, they felt something was amiss and decided to report it to the police. Initially, T'ian Szu-che dialed 119 to report the crime; because he did not know that reporting to the police actually meant dialing 110 instead of 119, there was no record of a phone report at the very beginning. T'ian Szu-che subsequently also called the post office to report his ATM card lost, and on that very same day—September 8, 2007—rushed to the police station to make a report. However, the police officers at the station brushed him off, saying that Mr. Lü's phone number had already been reported three times by citizens, and that counted as reporting the case, so they did not give T'ian Szu-che a tripartite police report form at the time. When Mother T'ian sought help from the 165 anti-fraud hotline, the police even told her that weekends were days off and instructed T'ian Szu-che to go to the original account-opening branch on Monday to update his passbook to check for abnormalities, gather evidence in hand, and then come back to report the crime. The very next day, T'ian Szu-che's account was listed as a warning account.

On September 10, 2007, Mother T'ian specially traveled north to accompany T'ian Szu-che to update his passbook at the post office to check for abnormal transactions. Right then, he was reported by the post office to the police station. The police arrived and detained T'ian Szu-che as a flagrant offender, refused to listen to any explanations, restricted his personal freedom, and transferred him to the Criminal Investigation Division. Mother T'ian told the police she hoped they would investigate the scam syndicate's IP address to at least pinpoint the syndicate's accomplices; furthermore, the fax receipt address for the ID card was located in Taiwan, which the police could also use as a clue to start investigating and prevent the scam syndicate from continuing to swindle people. Mother T'ian and T'ian Szu-che even stated that they wanted to contact other victims whose accounts had been scammed or lure the scam syndicate members out, but these proposals were all rejected by the police.

The police ultimately transferred T'ian Szu-che to the Prosecutors Office as a suspect and told him: "The prosecutor will see through your situation right away once they look at it. Transferring you under the name of a suspect is faster, and your account can be unfrozen sooner." However, what the police said did not happen; instead, he was convicted all the way through as an accomplice to fraud. At this point in the conversation, Mother T'ian deeply regretted not telling T'ian Szu-che to insist on getting the tripartite report form during his first police report, as perhaps none of this would have happened later. But I think none of this should have been something T'ian Szu-che and Mother T'ian had to bear just for trusting the people's protectors.

Litigation Full of Controversies

Mother T'ian stated that during the investigation stage, T'ian Szu-che actually met with the prosecutor only once. That meeting only asked factual questions, such as whether T'ian Szu-che had handed his account over to someone else, and then pressured him to confess. However, the prosecutor ignored the evidence T'ian Szu-che wanted investigated, only pulled the account transaction records to prove that T'ian Szu-che had indeed handed his account over to the scam syndicate, and directly applied for summary proceedings. Moreover, from the time T'ian Szu-che learned that the prosecutor had applied for summary proceedings to the first-instance guilty verdict, a mere two days passed, and not even a single court session was held!

When it reached the second instance, the judge stated right at the opening of the court session, "If you withdraw the appeal, it will be 3 months. If the prosecutor merges the cases, the sentence might be even heavier. Do you want to withdraw the appeal?" Regarding the evidence requested by the lawyer to be investigated, the judge said, "The lost-report data has already been investigated, so there is no need to summon the witness." Yet the judge completely failed to mention the loss report in the judgment, even though after the loss reporting and payment suspension, 4,600 NTD was still wired in, and they had successfully prevented more people from being victimized and scammed. The second-instance court ultimately concluded that T'ian Szu-che committed aiding and abetting fraud, and the conviction became final. Mother T'ian recalled: "When we received the judgment, it felt like a bolt from the blue. Seven years ago, we hadn't even heard of 'dummy accounts'; I only knew about gold swindlers. I didn't understand why simply looking for a job turned into being an accomplice to fraud!?" Speaking of this, I imagined to myself: even I, who have studied law and have some understanding of the courts, cannot be certain whether I could speak fluently in court without being swept along by the heavy hand of justice. What about someone who has never stepped foot into a police station? Or even someone like T'ian Szu-che, who didn't even know the police emergency number and dialed the wrong one? When so many unknown legal terms and procedures crashed down so unfriendly, the ensuing panic and helplessness felt like plunging into an ice cellar on such a scorching hot day.

Silence Cannot Change a System That Needs a Voice!

After the litigation began, T'ian Szu-che still tried to take on odd jobs to integrate into society. However, because his frozen accounts made it completely impossible for him to collect wages, the internet café where he worked part-time said, "We cannot deposit into personal accounts, so we cannot issue wages." His hard-earned salary for an entire month was lost just like that, and he was even mocked by coworkers as "Fraud Che!!" Under the mental and financial pressure caused by the lengthy judicial litigation, what greeted them was the final guilty verdict of the second instance. Mother T'ian then recalled back in 2008 when she and T'ian Szu-che went to the cinema to watch "The Dark Knight." In the film, Batman remained silent for the sake of justice and peace in Gotham City even though he was framed; similarly, T'ian Szu-che—who had been hit with a final guilty judgment—also began to grow taciturn. Fearing that her son's physical and mental health would continue to be damaged while trapped in this vortex, Mother T'ian suggested that T'ian Szu-che go to Japan to study and change his environment. Having been scammed and wronged by the judiciary, T'ian Szu-che no longer dared to work part-time, and his tuition and living expenses in Japan were entirely borne by Mother T'ian.

Watching T'ian Szu-che suffer, Mother T'ian felt she could not remain silent about such injustice. Innocence must be fought for, and the system must be changed! Mother T'ian petitioned the Control Yuan regarding the police officers' dereliction of duty and even filed a lawsuit against them for malfeasance. She could not imagine how a police agency—which serves as the "white" window connecting the judicial system and acts as the people's protector—could handle cases so perfunctorily that even victims could be treated as suspects. Not to mention that when victims enter a police agency, it is because they believe the police and the judicial system can realize justice for them, placing an unusually high degree of trust in the police officers, yet this trust somehow turned into a mistake? This resulted in T'ian Szu-che and Mother T'ian running around for as long as seven years due to such negligence and errors.

Perhaps due to this resilience born of motherhood and the realization of the harm scams inflict on ordinary people through the "wrongful path" her son walked, Mother T'ian also filed reports regarding what may have been fraudulent transactions on Yahoo! Kimo Auction. However, this triggered dissatisfaction among some netizens, who collectively attacked Mother T'ian in discussion forums. Mother T'ian also transformed her previously operated music and video online auction store into an anti-fraud advocacy website, preferring to pay store fees every month just to remind netizens about transaction safety. She even enthusiastically told us about the evidence needed if similar incidents occur, such as communication records proving phone calls were made to seek employment, asking the police to investigate IP addresses, or requesting bank ATM surveillance footage to prove one did not personally withdraw the funds, and so on.

Fortunately, Mother T'ian's various efforts finally bore fruit. The Control Yuan confirmed after investigation that there were obvious flaws in the police officers' handling of the case and administered disciplinary punishments. Meanwhile, T'ian Szu-che's retrial was successfully opened in 2011, and in 2013, he was acquitted and given a not-guilty verdict!

To this day, Mother T'ian still remembers what the retrial judge said: T'ian Szu-che "had no direct relationship with the crimes of others" and "had no intent to commit fraud." Furthermore, Mother T'ian was exceptionally grateful to the judges of the retrial court for explicitly mentioning the "presumption of innocence" and "in dubio pro reo" in the judgment, and for being able to empathize with the urgency of people desperately looking for work and their predicament of power asymmetry. Mother T'ian said that making such a judgment truly requires courage.

It is truly a relief that such a massive state apparatus still has unobstructed channels allowing people to pick up dropped screws and conduct maintenance and repairs. Being able to face problems and make remedies proves that this system and framework can still be expected to be corrected toward a better place, reducing these painful grievances and distorted lives and families. Rather than having the police and prosecutors simply cast a mold, and then leaving the courts to squeeze out one identical defendant after another.

T'ian Szu-che, having been squeezed by the judiciary in this manner, finally emerged from the dark night into the dawn, much like in "The Dark Knight Rises." T'ian Szu-che's life in Japan gradually got back on track. After his acquittal became final in the retrial, T'ian Szu-che finally felt at ease to start working part-time again. He currently works part-time as an apprentice in a restaurant making Japanese cuisine, while simultaneously studying philosophy. A while ago, he even happily told Mother T'ian that he had a girlfriend! The smile Mother T'ian wore when talking about this makes one feel deeply happy. But upon second thought, these ordinary happinesses should have been their everyday lives all along...

The Value of Justice...

If not for Mother T'ian's diligent probing and searching, what a disappointing outcome the judicial system's loose, dropped screws would have led to! This chain of errors altered the lives of Mother T'ian's family, stemming from police negligence, the prosecutor's failure to investigate thoroughly, the final line of defense—the court—failing to investigate evidence that should have been investigated, and the defense lawyer failing to realize what evidence was needed, all combining to form this type of case. The defendants in these cases are often the vulnerable in society, such as T'ian Szu-che, a job seeker who had just stepped into society. In minor offense cases, the courts often slack off on investigating evidence and directly conclude that the defendant is guilty based on "indirect intent," rather than handing down a not-guilty verdict due to insufficient evidence. Besides potentially bearing a criminal record, when notified as a warning account, the funds in all accounts under the person's name are frozen simultaneously—funds that might have otherwise supported several months of living expenses before finding a job. How dangerous is this for an ordinary person? Being labeled as a fraud defendant also creates distrust between labor and management. Are these results truly the intended effects of the judicial system? Mother T'ian once relayed: "An accuser once said to us, 'I'm sorry, I didn't think you were also victims. I didn't think it would lead to accusing you.'" If even the opposing parties, who ought to be antagonistic under the system's design, can see and discover errors during the judicial process, why do professional prosecutors and judges turn a blind eye?

People who lose money to fraud report it to the police, but the people caught are not the ones who actually stole their money. Instead, the court's mental evaluation leans toward punishing the negligence, ignorance, and fault of those who were likewise scammed out of their accounts, while the real fraud masterminds remain unarrested and unpunished? If not for coming into contact with the law and understanding the energy, time, and expenses worn away during litigation, I would not admire Mother T'ian's perseverance so much. Were it not for her persistence, ordinary people might lack the energy and be unable to reach the threshold of opening a retrial. Judicial resources are limited, but using such perfunctory procedures to impact and influence someone's entire life leaves one feeling disappointed. Could "presumption of innocence" and "in dubio pro reo" really only exist in academia? Or do these principles stop short outside the judicial gates? Compressed, stereotyped textual descriptions force defendants to face the predicament of being "unseen" during the litigation process, thereby creating this chain of oppression. This seems to be a problem that must be seen.