Taiwan prosecutors say a longtime aide to independent lawmaker Kao Chin Su-mei took Chinese money and built a network on the island for a decade — a fresh blow to trust in Taiwan's legislature.

• Chang Chun-chieh, the money manager for Kao's office, cut off his electronic monitoring bracelet and fled two days before the net closed.
• Two of Kao's staff, her office director and a publicly funded assistant, have been detained and barred from visitors under national security laws.
• Chang ran the office's China exchange work since 2002, leading Indigenous delegations to Beijing and Yunnan and dealing with Chinese officials handling Taiwan and ethnic affairs.
• Investigators are tracing 20 million yuan in disaster relief that Beijing's Taiwan Affairs Office sent after the 2009 Typhoon Morakot through a cultural group Kao founded.
• Whether Kao herself knew or took part is still unclear, and both detained aides are already defendants in a separate case over falsely claimed assistant pay.

Outlook: Prosecutors will keep chasing the money trail and the fugitive, and pressure will build on Kao as the case widens.