Lo Fu-chu
|
Lo Fu-chu MLY |
|
|---|---|
| 羅福助 | |
| Member of the Legislative Yuan | |
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In office February 1, 1996 – January 31, 2002 |
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| Constituency | Taipei County 2 |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
July 2, 1943 Tao Village, Hokuto District, Taichū Prefecture, Japanese Taiwan (Today Tianwei, Changhua County, Taiwan) |
| Nationality | Taiwanese |
| Political party | Independent |
| Occupation | politician |
Lo Fu-chu (Chinese: 羅福助; pinyin: Luó Fúzhù; born July 2, 1943) is a former Taiwanese legislator and a self-described leader of the "Celestial Alliance" organized criminal organization. In the late 1990s and early 2000s he was known as the most notorious person involved with organized crime then holding public office, and was reputed to be one of the wealthiest men in Taiwan. While in office he was described by other legislators as "verbally and physically violent", and he was arrested the same day that his second legislative term ended, in 2002. After leaving office Lo fought and appealed many charges over the next decade, but was eventually convicted in 2012 for money laundering and insider trading and sentenced to four years in prison. Following his conviction Lo was released on bail and subsequently disappeared. Officials at the Taiwanese Criminal Investigation Bureau believe that he has probably fled to China, where he has investments in the hotel and entertainment industries.
By the early 1980s, Lo was a mid-level figure in the Taiwanese underworld. Lo's brother was murdered by another figure in the Taiwanese mafia, but Lo was not senior enough to take revenge.
In 1984 Lo was detained for three years following Operation Clean Sweep, an effort by Taiwanese police to target organized criminal organizations and their members. Including Lo, 2,346 alleged "gangsters" were arrested in Operation Clean Sweep. Following his release, Lo joined, and became a leader of, a new criminal organization named the "Celestial Alliance", which was formed by a coalition of mob bosses who had been jailed together during Operation Clean Sweep.
Lo's leadership contributed to the growth of the Celestial Alliance, and it eventually became one of the three largest organized criminal organizations in Taiwan. The Celestial Alliance has become involved in a wide variety of legal and illegal operations, including construction, entertainment, the hotel industry, waste disposal, real estate, extortion, illegal logging, cyber crime, human trafficking, arms and drug smuggling, loansharking, illegal gambling, and prostitution. They later spread to mainland China, where they made investments in the hotel and entertainment industries in and around Beijing and Shanghai. Some members have been elected to lower-level political positions, where they are often perceived as working more effectively and efficiently than their rivals. Its main rivals are "mainland" gangs: those with roots in the 1940s Kuomintang exodus to Taiwan.
In 1990 the Taiwanese government launched another initiative targeting organized crime, Operation Thunderbolt, and Lo was personally identified by Hau Pei-tsun, the Taiwanese premier, as the operation's chief target. Lo evaded detention by fleeing Taiwan, and remained abroad until 1992. While Lo was abroad, two of his sons were elected to public office: one, Lo Ming-tai, was elected to Legislative Yuan as a Kuomintang representative, and the other was elected to the municipal assembly of Xindian.
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