I just came across a financial crime case—it's so outrageous that it truly exceeds imagination. Even screenwriters wouldn’t dare to write something like this.

To put it simply: a bank was scammed out of 550 million. The money couldn’t be recovered and turned into bad debt. A normal person would report it to the police, pursue debt collection, and try to recover losses. But what about E.SUN Bank? They turned around and lent 540 million to the same group of scammers, allowing them to use new funds to buy back the old debts they owed the bank—then the collateral that had originally been used to secure the loan was taken away. You heard that right: after being scammed once, the bank automatically walked right back in and got scammed a second time.

The story starts with the “King of Biotech Stocks,” Kang You-KY. Around 2000, a real estate tycoon, Wang Mingliang (Indonesian-born, Chinese-born), and Taiwanese Huang Wenlie bought a chemical factory in China and renamed it something like a pharmaceutical company. It sounded very proper. In reality, it was just a shell. The two of them saw that Taiwan was promoting the “Salmon Returning Home” policy at the time, so they packaged this fake drug factory as a new biotech company, hired accountants to artificially inflate bank deposits and beautify financial reports, and successfully got listed on Taiwan’s market. Over the next 7 years, using Ponzi-scheme methods, they siphoned 201 billion from the pockets of investors in Taiwan.

In the second trial, Huang Wenlie was sentenced to 30 years, but the real mastermind, Wang Mingliang, had already fled and is still under arrest warrants to this day.

Here’s the absurd part. In 2019, Wang Mingliang used a front company to borrow US$17.2 million from E.SUN Bank—about NT$5.5 billion—and pledged Kang You stock and equity in other companies as collateral. After the Kang You case broke out, naturally, this money couldn’t be recovered and turned into bad debt.

By 2020, Wang Mingliang was already a fugitive with an arrest warrant, but he wanted to get back the pledged collateral. So he set up a shell company called “Dawn Company.” The key point is that Huang Yijian, vice president of the Legal Department, North District at E.SUN Bank, and Zheng Kehao, assistant manager, actually approved a loan of US$17 million—about NT$5.4 billion—to Dawn Company, with the stated use being “to purchase non-performing receivables.”

The simplest explanation is this: the fugitive borrowed new money to buy back the old debts he owed the bank, and then took the collateral away. Not only did the bank not stop him—it even helped open the door for him. That new loan later, of course, also turned into bad debt.

On April 2, 2026, the Investigation Bureau searched E.SUN Bank’s offices in the Taipei 101 building and interviewed these two executives. After questioning that ran through the night, the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office charged them under the Banking Act with special breach of trust. Huang Yijian was released on bail of NT$150,000, and Zheng Kehao was released on bail of NT$50,000.

Put those numbers into perspective: the amount involved was NT$540 million, the bail was NT$50,000—meaning the ratio is 0.0009%. Think about it another way: if you’re a regular office worker who can’t make your NT$540,000 mortgage payments, the bank would chase you to the ends of the earth. But if you’re an insider at the bank, helping a fugitive let off the hook with NT$540 million, then the bail amount is roughly the price of a new iPhone. Even buying a new iPhone, a regular office worker might have to think twice.

The mastermind behind the scheme to siphon off NT$20.1 billion is still overseas and enjoying freedom, while the bank executives who helped open the door can go home and sleep after paying NT$50,000. As for the tens of thousands of Kang You shareholders who were victimized—none of their money has come back. The rules of the game for the wealthy have never been the same.