The High Court today upheld a 10-and-a-half-year prison sentence for a former diabolo champion who developed a Chinese-funded espionage organization in Taiwan with active-duty and retired military personnel.
Lu Chi-hsien (魯紀賢) and nine other accomplices were found to have received NT$5.7 million (US$179,116) from Chinese agents to obtain confidential information such as meeting reports and training documents, prosecutors said.
Lu was indicted in November 2023 and was sentenced in a retrial at the Taipei District Court in June last year for contravening the National Security Act (國家安全法).
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
One of the three accomplices paid to run his operations was Kuo Po-ting (郭伯廷), the younger brother of singer and actress Kuo Shu-yao (郭書瑤), prosecutors said.
His original sentence of three years and 10 months was reduced today to a three-year term.
Accomplice Chao Yi-wei (趙亦偉) had his sentence reduced from three years and eight months to two years, suspended for four years with protective supervision and 200 hours of community service.
Chinese national Tian Xi (田曦), who used underground remittances to send funds to Lu, also had his sentence reduced today, from eight years, to seven years and two months.
The court further rejected the appeals and upheld the sentences of four defendants involved in the scheme, including active-duty and retired military personnel.
Their sentences range from three years and eight months, to four years and 10 months.
All verdicts may be appealed.
The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office indicted 10 suspects in November 2023.
In the first trial, the Taipei District Court sent the case to the High Court as it involved state secrets.
However, the High Court found that as prosecutors were focused on the charge of “developing an organization” on behalf of China and the classified material could be used in another case, sending it back to the district court for a retrial.
The court accepted appeals filed by seven defendants.
Lu was recruited in 2020 during a trip to China to seek out opportunities for diabolo performances, prosecutors said.
After renting a townhouse in Taipei’s Shilin District (士林) as a base, he successfully recruited five military members or their close contacts, and failed to recruit a further 11, prosecutors said.
Lu was sentenced to a five-year, four-month prison sentence on charges of fraud for using his position on the board of the Republic of China Diabolo Federation to defraud investors and companies of NT$13.18 million, Taipei prosecutors said.
This case demonstrated new infiltration and recruitment tactics for Chinese espionage, as Lu visited pawnshops, money lenders and loan-shark operations near military bases, where he could find soldiers or officers who needed money or were having problems paying debts, Taipei Deputy Head Prosecutor Tsai Wei-yi (蔡偉逸) said last year.
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