The Taiwan High Prosecutors’ Office Tainan Branch (Tainan High Prosecutors) announced today (18th) the bust of a spy organization’s espionage for military secrets in Taiwan, resulting in the prosecution of 23 individuals, including 8 active-duty military personnel across different branches such as the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard. The highest rank among them is a captain, and all the military personnel implicated in leaking secrets are in debt.
The Tainan High Prosecutors told reporters from the Central News Agency today that they began investigating the espionage case in April this year. They conducted 4 waves of searches at 29 locations, seized 9 military classified documents, 1 official secret document, and summoned 49 individuals. The main suspect, surnamed Xu, and a man surnamed Sun were successively granted “detention and interrogation.”
According to the investigation, Xu and his brother visited Macau and the Hengqin Guangdong Free Trade Zone in Zhuhai, Guangdong Province, China multiple times. There, they met individuals known as “Dragon Brother” and “Wei Brother” who were running a casino in Macau and had set up businesses in the Hengqin Free Trade Zone, collecting military intelligence from Taiwan.
After being recruited by the other side, Xu started offering rewards ranging from 2,000 NT dollars (about 66 USD) to 30,000 NT dollars (about 994 USD) for each active-duty military personnel recruited since January 2022. Sun and 13 others were enticed, and through online lending companies and pawnshops, they found debt-ridden military personnel in need of funds.
Xu controlled the spy group, making contact with 21 active-duty military personnel. Eight of them, including someone named Tsai, agreed to steal military information and hand it over to Xu and Sun for replication. They used mobile messaging apps to send the information to “Dragon Brother” and others, in exchange for monthly bribes equivalent to their military salaries.
The prosecution calculated that Xu earned a criminal income of up to 3,975,731 NT dollars (about 131,757 USD) over two years, while Sun earned 266,400 NT dollars (about 8,828 USD). The other non-military defendants received amounts ranging from 30,000 NT dollars to 50,000 NT dollars (about 1,657 USD). The active-duty military personnel involved received bribes ranging from 10,000 NT dollars (about 331 USD) to 193,736 NT dollars (about 6,420 USD). The total amount of bribes was approximately 5 million NT dollars (about 165,700 USD). The implicated active-duty military personnel were from the Army, Navy, Air Force, and the Coast Guard under the Ocean Affairs Council, stationed across various locations in northern, central, southern, and eastern Taiwan, with ranks ranging from captain to enlisted personnel.
Following interrogation, Xu and 15 others were charged with violating the National Security Law and corruption laws, while the 8 active-duty military personnel were charged with violating laws specific to the Army, Navy, and Air Force, as well as corruption laws.
(Translated from Central News Agency)