The Ministry of National Defense (MND) denied a local media report yesterday claiming that former Army major general Lo Hsien-che (羅賢哲) sold a scrambler used by Taiwan’s intelligence services to China while he was posted in Thailand from 2002 to 2005.
“An investigation indicated no such thing happened,” the ministry said in a statement.
The statement said that Lo, a one-star general, was indicted by the Prosecutors’ Office of the Military High Court in May on charges that included violating his duty to loyally serve the nation.
After reviewing all of the evidence, the Military High Court said nothing was found that indicated any of the military’s devices used to protect Taiwan’s secrets was -delivered to China.
Local media reports that said “Lo Hsien-che sold a scrambler to communist China,” were not factual, the statement said.
The ministry said that all equipment related to military secrets was subject to a stringent military communication security management system.
Under the system, security guards and secret units conduct regular inventory checks on all such equipment.
Asked whether the intelligence Lo allegedly sold to China made it possible for the military’s codes to be broken, ministry spokesman Lo Shao-ho (羅紹和) said the ministry was not in a position to comment on the case because it was still being tried in court.
Lo Hsien-che was arrested in January on charges of spying for China. He is believed to be the highest-ranking Taiwanese military officer to have been charged with espionage charges in nearly five decades.
On May 20, the military court asked for life imprisonment for Lo, who reportedly confessed to spying.
The Chinese-language China Times reported yesterday that investigators found that Lo reported the loss of a scrambler while posted in Thailand, leading the paper to conclude: “It is almost certain that Lo ‘sold’ the scrambler to communist China for a high price.”
Because access to the scrambler would allow the user to break Taiwan’s military codes, the newspaper said that if China possesses such a device, it would pose a grave threat to national security.
According to the media report, an intelligence source revealed that in the espionage war between Taiwan and China, Taipei’s most valuable intelligence asset was not its plans to defend the Taiwan Strait, but the scramblers used to ensure communications remain secure.
“If such a device was sold, it would have gone for an incredibly high price. The buyer would have just given a blank check,” the China Times article said, adding that the scrambler Lo allegedly sold to China was an “An Ping No. 6” developed by the Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology — a military-run research institute.
That device is part of a series ranging from An Ping No. 4 to An Ping No. 8, where the higher the number the higher the level of classified data.
The article also said that An Ping-series scramblers are used on fax machines to encrypt documents.
The An Tung series is used on cellphones and the An Hsuan system on computers, it said.
One major question in the minds of ministry and national security officials is how Lo could have been promoted to the position of general rather than being disciplined after he reported having lost such an important device, it said.
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