It reads like a John le Carre spy-thriller. The ingredients are all there. Billions of dollars for military hardware-here read French Lafayette Frigates. The staggering amount for bribes and payoffs alone reaches well over US$600 millions of dollars. Even the PRC military got in on the action and were paid well not to protest France selling these ships to Taiwan. How France got the contract instead of South Korea which had seemed to have had it in the bag, is only the beginning; the known body count of accidental deaths and questionable suicides has reached at least 8 with falling out of windows from tall buildings seeming to be the accident of choice. Yes, even by Taiwan standards this is a scandal of scandals.