Three former employees of an optics company based in the Southern Taiwan Science Park (南部科學園區) have been charged with stealing and selling trade secrets in a scheme that netted more than NT$18 million (US$632,556) in illicit gain, prosecutors said in a statement yesterday.
The Ciaotou District Prosecutors’ Office identified the chief suspect as a 37-year-old female former company sales manager surnamed Wang (王).
Prosecutors also named as suspects a 42-year-old female former company engineer surnamed Chen (陳), and a former sales manager, a Chinese national based in China surnamed Zhou (周).
The three allegedly collaborated to steal intellectual property from the firm, including product diagrams and analysis systems, which they sold via shell companies to university research labs and private companies in Hong Kong and China, netting an estimated NT$18.22 million.
Prosecutors did not identify the company, except to say that it specializes in artificial lighting and spectral analysis, and has Amazon.com Inc and First Solar Inc among its international customers.
The company discovered the alleged theft after Chen resigned from her job in August last year. Wang left the company in September 2019 while Zhou left in February 2020.
An inspection of the computers Chen and Wang had used uncovered large amounts of confidential material that indicated wrongdoing. The company reported the documents to the police, who arrested Wang and Chen, the prosecutors’ office said.
The prosecutors’ office said it had charged the three with contraventions of the Trade Secrets Act (營業秘密法), with Zhou charged in absentia, and received a court order to seize assets from the suspects totaling NT$14.22 million.
The court also approved a request to detain Wang and hold her incommunicado, given the severity of her crimes and the risk of collusion, and set bail for Chen at NT$60,000 with restrictions on her movements, prosecutors said.
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