China Power | Politics | East Asia

TPP Founder Ko Wen-je Gets 17 Years in Prison

Ko’s corruption scandal has roiled the third largest party in Taiwan’s legislature. 

TPP founder Ko Wen-je (right) attends a forum in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, on Mar. 7, 2026. On Mar. 26, he was sentenced to 17 years in prison.

Former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je has been sentenced to 17 years in jail by the Taipei District Court. Ko will also be deprived of civil rights for six years.

Ko is the founder of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), which at present is the third largest party in the Taiwanese legislature. Ko ran as the party’s presidential candidate in the 2024 elections, after a failed bid by the party to form a joint ticket with the Kuomintang (KMT). Indeed, until facing corruption charges, Ko continued to be a presidential hopeful, and it was expected that he would run again in 2028. 

Now, that possibility has been thrown into question. Taiwanese law stipulates that individuals who have been sentenced to more than 10 years in jail are forbidden from running for president or vice president. This is true even if the appeals process is underway. As such, even if Ko can and does appeal the ruling, it appears that the TPP founder will be prevented from running in the 2028 elections. 

Prosecutors charged Ko with receiving 2.1 million Taiwanese dollars in bribes from the Core Pacific Group. In return, Ko’s administration approved an illegal expansion of the floor area of the Core Pacific City Mall, giving the mall more real estate. The floor area ratio of the Core Pacific City Mall was expanded from 392 percent to 840 percent, allowing for an extra 3,300 square meters in space – amounting to more than NT$40 billion in value. 

The charges against Ko also touched upon other financial irregularities that have attracted scrutiny in past years. For example, alone of all major parties in Taiwan, the TPP declared zero presidential campaign expenditures for the 2024 election. By contrast, the KMT reported NT$147 million in expenditures which included NT$23.2 million in campaign expenditures, while the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) declared NT$142 million in expenditures (NT$62.4 million in campaign expenses). Attracting still more scrutiny, after a fundraising event for his 2024 campaign, Ko apparently used the proceeds to purchase a new personal office, rather than on his campaign. 

Other individuals involved in the case were also handed lengthy jail sentences. Core Pacific Group chair Sheen Ching-jing was sentenced to 10 years in jail, and Taipei city councilor Angela Ying of the KMT who was sentenced to 15-and-a-half years. Ying was accused of acting as a go-between for Sheen and Ko. Former Taipei deputy mayor Peng Chen-sheng, Ko’s office director Lee Wen-tsung, Lee Wen-chuan (the chair of Ko-linked PR firm Muko), and Ko’s accountant Tuanmu Cheng also face jail time.  

Ko’s secretary, Hsu Chih-yu, nicknamed “Orange,” fled to Japan and is currently considered a fugitive. Earlier this month, Ko applied to visit Japan for his son’s Ph.D. graduation, but permission to travel was denied due to the possibility that he would flee or seek to meet with Hsu. 

Before Ko’s sentence, he spent around one year in pretrial detention. Ko was taken into custody in September 2024 and released in September 2025, (not including some brief periods in which he was granted bail, then had bail revoked). Prosecutors defended Ko’s detention over the possibility that he would seek to destroy evidence. 

A USB drive seized from Ko that had a record of his transactions became a key source of evidence, as did unusually large deposits at ATMs made by Ko’s wife, Peggy Chen. 

TPP politicians and supporters, have insisted on Ko’s innocence. Instead, the party has framed the charges against Ko as a form of political persecution by the DPP. Ko himself has also hit out at the........

© The Diplomat