The manager of a technology company on Monday faced fraud charges for allegedly selling the navy Chinese-made equipment instead of European goods, the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office said.
The manager, surnamed Lai (賴), allegedly made NT$51.94 million (US$1.71 million) in illicit profits after winning a government tender in August 2019 to supply four 60-kilowatt generators to the navy, prosecutors said.
Lai’s company beat four other bidders to win three of the four tenders issued by the Naval Fleet Command.
Photo: Chou Min-hung, Taipei Times
The tenders stipulated that the generators provided by the winning bidder must be sourced from Europe, the US or Japan, and cannot be manufactured in or imported from China or Chinese products transshipped via a third country.
Although officials were initially suspicious of Lai’s bid, which was 80 percent lower than the tender’s reference prices, their misgivings were eased after Lai provided documents showing that the generators would be imported from Europe.
However, prosecutors later received a tip-off and found that Lai, another manager in his company surnamed Lin (林) and the owner of another company, surnamed Ho (何), knew that the generators and their components were produced and imported from China, with some transshipped via Singapore.
The trio allegedly used forged documents in Chinese and English to win the contracts worth NT$92 million and pass inspections, prosecutors said.
They have denied any wrongdoing and said they sourced the generators from a Chinese company, because there was not enough time to ship them from the original Spanish supplier.
However, prosecutors dismissed the trio’s explanation and indicted them on charges of fraud and document forgery, as well as contravening the Government Procurement Act (政府採購法).
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