Three ranking employees at a technology group have been sentenced to jail for defrauding the navy by selling it Chinese equipment, racking up NT$82.59 million (US$2.54 million) in illicit profits, the New Taipei District Court said yesterday.
The court handed Lai Cheng-hsing (賴正興), who was responsible for operations at MACRO-e Technology Co at the time, a two-year-and-a-half-year sentence on charges of aggravated fraud related to radar generators the navy procured in 2019.
A MACRO-e Technology manager surnamed Lin (林) received a prison sentence of one year and 10 months, while a woman identified as Ho (何), who was a representative for an affiliate of the group, was sentenced to one year and six months.
Photo: Chen Wei-tzu, Taipei Times
The court found that the three had defrauded the navy by selling it Chinese-made generators in three tenders.
The products and parts were required to be made in Europe, Japan or the US, and had specifically excluded Chinese-made products, including those that were shipped from other countries.
The prosecutors said they found that five companies participated in the navy’s four tenders, with MACRO-e Technology winning three of the bids by offering rates 80 percent below the base prices, at a total of NT$92.25 million.
Although navy personnel inquired about the prices, the company showed them past documents and bidding records guaranteeing that all the products they purchased would be from Europe, the prosecutors said.
However, prosecutors discovered that MACRO-e Technology only bought 12 generators from Spain, with another 26 imported from Chinese companies.
The investigation indicated that the three individuals were aware, but colluded to defraud the navy with forged documents and certificates in Chinese or English.
The court ruled that the three were guilty of defrauding the navy and handed them sentences based on their respective Criminal Code contraventions.
The ruling can be appealed.
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