Two Taiwanese businessmen on Wednesday were indicted for allegedly working on behalf of Chinese firms to recruit Taiwanese to research and design memory devices.
The suspects, surnamed Chen (陳) and Huang (黃), allegedly set up offices near the Hsinchu Science Park in Hsinchu City to target employees in the semiconductor and other high-tech industries, the Hsinchu District Prosecutors’ Office said.
After months of surveillance, Hsinchu investigators, with support from the Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau, raided the offices and residences of Chen and Huang, who are facing charges related to acting as fronts for Chinese-owned businesses to operate in Taiwan.
Prosecutors said that the businessmen used shell companies and figureheads as owners, and submitted falsified information to register their businesses with the Ministry of Economic Affairs.
Since 2019, the men had recruited about a dozen Taiwanese from the nation’s high-tech sectors to research and develop DRAM and resistive RAM technologies in offices and test facilities in Hsinchu County’s Jhubei City (竹北), prosecutors said.
The pair in 2019 registered Concord Technology Inc (同協合科技) and Gloriousjoy IV Investment Co (耀嘉欣四投資) in Jhubei, prosecutors said.
An investigation found that the companies were operating as fronts for Chinese firms, as they received funding from Zhuhai 2X Memory Technology Corp (珠海興芯存儲科技), based in China’s Guangdong Province, and its subsidiary Zhuhai Polar Technology Co (廣東珠海南北極科技), Hsinchu prosecutor Chiu Chih-ping (邱志平) said.
“A total of US$750,000 was transferred from foreign banks into accounts in Taiwan held by Chen and Huang,” Chiu said. “The funds were wired at various times between November 2019 and July 2020.”
Chen and Huang had reported that the money was from direct foreign investment, in an attempt to conceal its Chinese origins, Chiu said.
The money was used to rent offices and research facilities, as well as to pay wages, operating expenses and for recruitment ads, Chiu said.
The people recruited by Chen and Huang signed employment contracts with Zhuhai 2X Memory, and the results of their research were passed directly to the companies in China, Chiu said.
Chen and Huang face charges of contravening regulations in the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) prohibiting Chinese companies from engaging in business activities in Taiwan without review by government authorities.
If convicted, they could be sentenced to a maximum of three years in prison and fined up to NT$15 million (US$501,857), Chiu said.
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