The Special Investigation Unit (SIU) did not disclose much about the raid at Chen's home, in an upscale apartment building at Taipei's Xinyi District.

"We came to Chen's residence...to investigate the (alleged money laundering) case this morning...The former president and his wife explained transactions of the money," said Chu Chao-liang, a spokesman for the SIU.

Chu said prosecutors did not use warrants, as the couple were cooperative.

Prosecutors in Tainan also searched the home of the former first lady's brother, Wu Ching-mao, in the afternoon.

Chen has claimed that his wife Wu Shu-chen had remitted US$20 million out of Taiwan in January 2008 without letting him know. He said the money was from campaign funds that he had failed to declare.

But prosecutors are trying to determine whether the couple was trying to launder illegally obtained money.

Meanwhile, Taiwan's top prosecutor has ordered a probe into a seven-month delay by the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau (MJIB) in reporting information it had received about former Chen's alleged money laundering.

State Public Prosecutor General Chen Tsung-ming said the SIU under his office did not realize that the MJIB had been long aware of the former president's alleged money laundering until recent exposure of the case in the media.

The prosecutor general said he already instructed the anti-corruption task force to look into the MJIB's delay in reporting Chen's case to his office.

Media reports have disclosed that the MJIB already had been informed by the Cayman Islands in January of this year about alleged money laundering, involving the ex-president's son, Chen Chih-chung, and daughter-in-law, Huang Jui-ching.

An SIU ad hoc team that has already been investigating the former first couple over their alleged embezzlement of the presidential state affairs funds said it first learned about the overseas money laundering from the press.

They said they then contacted the MJIB, which admitted that it already had obtained information from the Cayman Islands in January.

The ad hoc team said the SIU did not get full details of the case until Aug. 14, when prosecutors handling related cases got together in a meeting.

But by then, the former president's son and daughter-in-law had already left Taiwan, on Aug. 9, it said.

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