TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The owner of Wawa Culture & Creative Co., a Taiwanese trading company accused of swindling more than NT$23 million (US$814,490) from consumers in online mask sales, has died.

On Thursday (March 11), Taipei City Hall Consumer Ombudsman Yang Li-ping (楊麗萍) confirmed that Wawa Culture Chairman Lee Tzu-bin (李子斌) had passed away recently without specifying the cause of his death. She said she had only learned about the news from the company on Monday.

Last November, Wawa Culture released a series of face masks featuring world-famous paintings by international artists, including Vincent Van Gogh, Claude Monet, Paul Gauguin, Georges-Pierre Seurat, Edvard Munch, and Henri Rousseau. The masks received much international attention at the time, and sales quickly exploded across Taiwan.

However, reports about Wawa Culture's delayed shipments of its regular medical masks soon began to surface, with the government saying it had received over 1,400 consumer complaints since July. Employees at Taiwan's Eva Air and China Airlines were among the thousands of victims of the alleged scam.

After multiple mediation sessions organized by the Consumer Protection Committee, the company finally agreed to refund its customers starting later this month. However, with the sudden passing of Lee, thousands of victims are now worried about whether they will get their money back.

Speaking to the media on Thursday, Yang Li-ping said the mediation session scheduled for Friday will proceed regardless, as all the invitations have been sent out. However, she cautioned that any agreements reached during the meeting may only be deemed legal after Wawa Culture elects a new chairman.

Wawa Culture released face masks featuring world-famous paintings last November. (Wawa Culture photo)