Prosecutors today announced charges and deferred prosecutions for three Chinese companies suspected of recruiting Taiwanese workers illegally and stealing industry secrets.
The three firms, Naura Technology Group Co (北方華創微電子裝備), Canaan Creative (嘉楠捷思信息技術) and Blue X Micro (合肥聯睿微電子科技), attempted to take advantage of Taiwan’s high-tech sector in contravention of 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), prosecutors said.
Last year, prosecutors specializing in national security and trade secrets led an investigation along with government investigators in Taichung, Taoyuan and Tainan to crack down on Chinese-backed enterprises illegally operating in Taiwan, prosecutors said.
Photo: Liao Hsueh-ju, Taipei Times
Since 2016, Naura has illegally sold and maintained semiconductor equipment in Taiwan, using a Taiwanese citizen surnamed Wang (王) to operate a front company since 2019, prosecutors said.
By 2023, 26 engineers from Naura’s Taiwan office were transferred to this shell corporation, which continued to receive funding from Naura under the guise of “agency fees,” prosecutors said.
Similarly, Canaan Creative used a citizen surnamed Chen (陳) to establish a Taiwan-based company in 2017 as a way of avoiding regulatory scrutiny, prosecutors said.
From 2018 to last year, Chen successfully recruited a team of engineers, who, using virtual private networks, directly uploaded data to Canaan’s servers in Beijing, they said.
Canaan paid US$15.42 million in “service fees,” which covered research and development expenses, salaries and other costs, they said.
Blue X Micro, with the help of a citizen surnamed Lu (呂), engaged in Bluetooth chip research and set up a Taiwanese branch of a US company as a front for its operations, prosecutors said.
Hsinchu Science Park is a cornerstone of Taiwan’s advanced industries, the Hsinchu District Prosecutors' Office said, adding that people should verify recruitment offers to avoid jeopardizing national interests.
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