The Taipei District Court yesterday sentenced a manager at a Taichung-based travel-related business over an operation that provided bogus professional certifications to help Chinese nationals enter Taiwan.
The court sentenced Lee Tzu-yi (李子奕) to two years in prison with a five-year suspended term over breaches of the Act Governing the Relations Between the Peoples of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (兩岸人民關係條例).
Lee headed up the secretariat section of Taiwan Enterprise Managers Association (台灣企業經理人協進會), which works with travel agencies in China to expedite visa and travel arrangements for Chinese tourists’ trips to Taiwan.
Investigators found that for as little as NT$1,000, Lee would produce documentation that falsely certified a Chinese national as a factory manager or the general manager of a company, which could help them obtain a business visa to enter Taiwan.
Beginning in 2009, Lee linked up with Chinese travel agencies to run the operation and saw at least 21 Chinese nationals enter the nation on the pretext of conducting “business inspection tours” and “attending professional association meetings,” investigators said.
According to investigators, the Chinese travel agencies sent documents to Lee for him to produce fraudulent invitation letters, tour-group names and business titles, travel itinerary plans, guarantee papers and other information needed to apply for business visas.
Investigators said that Lee used the association’s letterhead to issue invitations and produce guarantee papers for immigration authorities, adding that he made business visa applications look legitimate by using the stamps of the association’s chairman and secretary-general.
Investigations into possible roles played by the chairman, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and secretary-general, surnamed Chang (張), were ongoing to determine if they were party to any illegalities, investigators said.
Critics said the case has exposed the frailty of the nation’s border controls, and checks on Chinese and other foreigners, while the ease with which the system can be bypassed using bogus documentation is a concern.
They said Lee’s case might be the tip of the iceberg and that national security is being undermined by companies seeking to profit from the tourism sector, since an unknown number of Chinese nationals, including military personnel and intelligence-gathering operatives, have entered Taiwan through illegal means.
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