Two brothers and eight active service members were handed sentences ranging from 30 months to more than 10 years today for spying on behalf of China.
The Tainan branch of the High Court sentenced two brothers surnamed Hsu (諜) to seven years and 10 months and seven years and four months respectively, while the eight service members received sentences ranging from two-and-a-half years to 10 years and two months.
Starting in 2021, the Hsu brothers made several trips to Macau and Zhuhai in China’s Guangdong Province, where they set up companies as a front for collecting Taiwanese military intelligence, prosecutors said.
Photo: Reuters
In January 2022, the brothers recruited a man surnamed Sun (孫), who was sentenced to five years and six months in prison, and 12 others to bring active-duty service members into the scheme, prosecutors said.
The brothers posted loan advertisements for military personnel and worked with pawnshops to target service members in need of money, they said.
In return for photographs of their military ID cards and military secrets smuggled out of bases, soldiers were bribed with the equivalent of up to one month’s pay, prosecutors said.
The Hsu brothers and Sun would then send the information to their contact in China, a man called “Brother Long” (龍哥), prosecutors said.
The brothers received more than NT$3.97 million (US$132,750) in illegal funds for their work, prosecutors said, adding that Sun made more than NT$266,000 and the eight service members made between NT$10,000 and NT$190,000.
The eight service members came from the army, navy, air force and coast guard, were active nationwide and included officers as well as soldiers, they said.
Prosecutors launched an investigation in April last year, carrying out four waves of searches across 29 locations and questioning 49 people before holding the main suspects incommunicado.
In their search, prosecutors seized nine pieces of confidential military information and one classified document.
The Hsu brothers were among 15 people accused of breaching the National Security Act (國安法), while the service members were also prosecuted for contravening the Criminal Code of the Armed Forces (陸海空軍刑法) and the Anti-Corruption Act (貪污治罪條例).
The sentences can be appealed.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday said it had deployed patrol vessels to expel a China Coast Guard ship and a Chinese fishing boat near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. The China Coast Guard vessel was 28 nautical miles (52km) northeast of Pratas at 6:15am on Thursday, approaching the island’s restricted waters, which extend 24 nautical miles from its shoreline, the CGA’s Dongsha-Nansha Branch said in a statement. The Tainan, a 2,000-tonne cutter, was deployed by the CGA to shadow the Chinese ship, which left the area at 2:39pm on Friday, the statement said. At 6:31pm on Friday,
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, would pose a steep challenge to Taiwan’s ability to defend itself against a full-scale invasion, a defense expert said yesterday. Institute of National Defense and Security Research analyst Chieh Chung (揭仲) made the comment hours after the PLAN confirmed the carrier recently passed through the Taiwan Strait to conduct “scientific research tests and training missions” in the South China Sea. China has two carriers in operation — the Liaoning and the Shandong — with the Fujian undergoing sea trials. Although the PLAN needs time to train the Fujian’s air wing and
The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) put Taiwan in danger, Ma Ying-jeou Foundation director Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑) said yesterday, hours after the de facto US embassy said that Beijing had misinterpreted World War II-era documents to isolate Taiwan. The AIT’s comments harmed the Republic of China’s (ROC) national interests and contradicted a part of the “six assurances” stipulating that the US would not change its official position on Taiwan’s sovereignty, Hsiao said. The “six assurances,” which were given by then-US president Ronald Reagan to Taiwan in 1982, say that Washington would not set a date for ending arm sales to Taiwan, consult
A Taiwanese academic yesterday said that Chinese Ambassador to Denmark Wang Xuefeng (王雪峰) disrespected Denmark and Japan when he earlier this year allegedly asked Japan’s embassy to make Taiwan’s representatives leave an event in Copenhagen. The Danish-language Berlingske on Sunday reported the incident in an article with the headline “The emperor’s birthday ended in drama in Copenhagen: More conflict may be on the way between Denmark and China.” It said that on Feb. 26, the Japanese embassy in Denmark held an event for Japanese Emperor Naruhito’s birthday, with about 200 guests in attendance, including representatives from Taiwan. After addressing the Japanese hosts, Wang
RSS