Taiwan actor Darren Wang denies wrongdoing in case over illegally obtained data used to recover girlfriend's money

He says he only set up a group chat and left them to it.

Taiwanese actor Darren Wang appeared at Taiwan's High Court on Sep. 30 for the first hearing of an appeal in his Personal Data Protection Act case.

Wang and his girlfriend, Chueh Mu-hsuan, said that they are not guilty.

Former police officer Liu Chu-jung admitted guilt over the offence for which he had been convicted at first instance, according to Yahoo News Taiwan.

Prosecutors accused Wang of approaching Yu Hsiang-min for help in two separate matters involving the retrieval of personal data.

Yu subsequently contacted Liu, then acting head of a criminal investigation team with the Taipei City police.

The first involved a man surnamed Pan, from whom Chueh was trying to recover NT$4 million (S$160,173) in investment-related debt.

The second involved Chen Chih-ming, the head of a draft-evasion ring, whom Wang was unhappy with after allegedly taking payment without providing the service.

On the Chen matter, Wang told the court he had asked someone to help locate a man known only by the nickname “Xiao Hei”, without providing his real name.

When he later learned Chen was in prison, Wang said he told them there was no need to continue looking for him.

On the debt, he said he had approached Yu to help his girlfriend recover money she had been cheated out of. Since the two did not know each other, he set up a group chat with them and left them to communicate directly.

He said he did not take part in the discussions beyond occasionally sending polite messages such as “thank you”, and was unaware of the data lookups or debt collection that followed.

The New Taipei District Court sentenced Wang to six months, convertible to a fine of NT$180,000 (S$7,206). Chueh received the same.

Yu was sentenced to three months, convertible to NT$90,000 (S$3,603), as did Chen Tzu-chun, a member of the Four Seas Gang.

Liu was the only defendant whose sentence could not be converted to a fine.

He was sentenced to one year and four months for making false entries as a public official, and admitted to the charge at the hearing.

Chen Chih-ming was also brought to court for the hearing.