By Chien Li-chung, Pao Chien-hsin and Jonathan Chin / Staff reporters, with staff writer and AFP
A Taiwanese businessman and his son have been indicted for allegedly recruiting two soldiers to help them collect confidential information for China about Taiwan’s largest military exercise, prosecutors said on Monday.
After moving to China’s Fujian Province in 2015 to conduct business, the man, surnamed Huang (?), and his son were “lured” by two Chinese officials he met to “collect confidential national defense documents,” the Tainan branch of the High Prosecutors’ Office said.
The duo “intended to endanger national security, and to jointly develop a network in Taiwan to lure and absorb … active-duty servicemen,” prosecutors said in a statement issued late on Monday.
Photo: Taipei Times file
The Huangs were charged with contravening the National Security Act (?????) and the Classified National Security Information Protection Act (???????), while the soldiers were charged with contravening the Criminal Code of the Armed Forces and corruption.
The father and son allegedly asked the two soldiers, who worked for the air force’s air defense and missile division, to sign a letter pledging “allegiance” to Beijing, as well as arranged for them to meet Chinese officials abroad, the statement said.
Together, they collected eight items about the Han Kuang exercises — Taiwan’s largest annual war games, with the latest taking place two weeks ago — and “other confidential military documents” to hand over to Chinese officials either in person or by mobile phone, prosecutors said.
In other developments, the High Prosecutors’ Office has detained three suspects and restricted their communications in a broadening probe into alleged Chinese espionage involving a retired army major surnamed Hsiao (?), a source familiar with the matter said yesterday.
Hsiao, an instructor at the Army Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Training Center who retired from service in April, was on July 31 released on NT$600,000 (US$18,862) bail after accusing a major, surnamed He (?), an operations officer based in Hualien and Taitung Defense Command, of being the one who provided him with classified information, the source said.
Major He has since been detained, along with a lieutenant colonel surnamed Hsieh (?) of the Army Aviation and Special Forces Command’s 601st Aviation Brigade and businessman Xie Bingcheng (???), they said.
The major was accused of passing hundreds of pages of classified documents pertaining to the Han Kuang military exercises to Xie, the source said.
Meanwhile, the Kaohsiung branch of the High Court yesterday sentenced an army staff sergeant surnamed Tsai (?) to five years in prison on charges related to selling secrets to China. The sentence is subject to appeal.
The man was accused of giving classified documents to an unknown person or entity in exchange for NT$1.04 million while serving at the headquarters of Penghu Defense Command, court documents showed.
Tsai is believed to have been enticed into borrowing from an unknown person or entity that presented itself as an online money lender dealing specifically with military service members, court documents showed.
After Tsai incurred a significant amount of debt, the person or entity pressured him into surreptitiously using a digital device to make copies of classified documents at work, they said, adding that this happened multiple times in 2020.
Tsai was said to have stored the classified information he obtained, including sensitive information and operational plans, in his personal computer, court documents showed.
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