The National Chung-shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST) today confirmed that it had detected suspicious activity, after Taiwan People’s Party Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) said that an insider had been selling sensitive tender documents to potential contractors.
Earlier in the day, Huang in a Facebook post said that the leaks occurred in the past months and concerned tender documents for Intelligence Surveillance Systems from the institute’s Pengyuan Campus.
This was not a singular case, but a string of information leaks pertaining to military procurement, he added.
Photo: Screen grab from Huang Kuo-chang's Facebook
He further accused Minister of National Defense and NCSIST chair Wellington Koo (顧立雄) of “turning a blind eye,” questioning whether everyone at the institute “takes a cut.”
The NCSIST plays a major role in national defense, undertaking research projects commissioned by all branches of the military while producing and maintaining a range of weapons systems for the armed forces, Huang said.
Each year, the institute receives almost NT$100 billion (US$3.26 billion) from the Ministry of Defense, he added.
The institute said that suspicious activity pertaining to the unusual copying of documents was recently detected on its internal security mechanisms.
It launched a preliminary investigation before referring the case to the Military Police Command on Aug. 14, which transferred the case to prosecutors for a judicial investigation, it said.
It vowed to enforce the harshest punishment for those responsible to serve as a stark warning for others.
The documents in question did contain trade secrets such as tender documents, the institute said.
During the open bidding period, such documents are made available to companies looking to submit tenders, it said.
It is suspected that the person responsible leaked the documents early to a potential client, it added.
However, the institute refuted Huang’s claims of Koo’s involvement.
Additional reporting by Lin Che-yuan
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