A retired army lieutenant who operates a travel agency in Kinmen County has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for trying to build a spy network for China by targeting Taiwanese military officers.
The Kinmen District Court on Thursday found Shao Wei-chiang (邵維強), owner of Safety Travel Service Co, guilty of contravening the National Security Act (國家安全法) and the Banking Act (銀行法).
Shao, 59, had also worked as a TV reporter for 27 years — as the Kinmen correspondent for Taiwan’s China Television Co (CTV) from 1993 to 2019.
Photo: Taipei Times files
He has been operating a travel agency since 1993.
Lured by financial incentives, Shao began working for the Chinese government in 2002 while he was still employed at CTV, Kinmen District Court Chief Judge Huang Chien-tu (黃建都) said.
He tried to recruit military officers to obtain confidential information that he could pass on to China, Huang added.
“Investigators found that Shao had worked for China for 20 years until his arrest last year, and he passed on the Chinese payments to those he had recruited as spies. His case has endangered national security and harmed military morale. The defendant should be heavily punished to deter such behavior,” Huang said.
Shao was found guilty of breaching the Banking Act for conducting illegal money exchanges of Taiwanese and Chinese currencies totaling NT$90 million (US$2.9 million) during his many trips as a reporter and travel operator using the “small three links” between Kinmen and China’s Xiamen.
The ruling also deprived Shao of his civil rights for four years and his NT$2.54 million reward for spying was confiscated.
The ruling can be appealed.
Before he was arrested last year, Shao recruited at least two people as spies, including Kung Fan-chia (孔繁嘉), a reporter for the Ministry of National Defense-run Military News Agency who had access to most military schools, training facilities and military exercises.
The other recruit was former army colonel Hsiang Te-en (向德恩), 50, who was the commander of the Kinmen Garrison Battalion of the Kinmen Defense Command. Hsiang had also served as the deputy commander of the field operations unit in the Pingtung County-based Eighth Field Army Command.
Hsiang was in February sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison and ordered to repay the NT$560,000 that he received from his Chinese handlers.
An investigation found that Hsiang had signed a document promising to surrender to the Chinese Communist Party. In a photograph with Shao, Hsiang, in military attire, is seen holding a document pledging his assistance to the Chinese side in the event of an invasion.
For his pledge to surrender to the Chinese side and trying to persuade other military officers to do the same, Hsiang received NT$40,000 a month from Shao, the intermediary, which totaled NT$560,000 over 14 months, a court filing said.
A ruling on Kung’s case is still pending.
The investigation also showed that Shao had tried to recruit at least three other military colonels, but he did not succeed.
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