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.
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