Taiwanese media, including the Liberty Times, reported on the 10th that a spy incident involved leaking confidential information from the Taiwanese military to China using a gold shop.
The Kaohsiung District Prosecutors Office in southern Taiwan announced that it has charged a person surnamed Hsu, who operated a gold shop near the Zhuoying Naval Base, for violations of relevant laws.
According to the prosecution, Hsu recruited Taiwanese soldiers in need of immediate funds under the instructions of an illegal currency trader surnamed Huang and a Chinese individual surnamed Wang since 2019.
They posted advertisements on the Internet, enticing soldiers by offering to pay off their gambling debts and provide rewards. They used this bait to collect and pass along various military confidential information, including the large-scale military exercise Han Guang, in preparation for a potential invasion by the Chinese military.
The prosecution explained that Hsu was discovered to have illegally exchanged and remitted Chinese yuan to New Taiwan dollars without reporting to the authorities from March 2021 to October 2023.
The prosecution pointed out that the gold shop in Taiwan has become a hub for illegal underground currency transaction activities by Chinese organizations within Taiwan for several years. It also mentioned recovering illegal profits amounting to 6 million New Taiwan dollars (approximately 270 million won).
The soldiers who leaked military secrets and Hsu's accomplices have already been indicted.
Since the inauguration of pro-independence President Tsai Ing-wen in 2016, relations between China and Taiwan have cooled. Since then, the number of soldiers arrested on espionage charges in Taiwan has been rising.
In December 2023, a senior officer of the Taiwanese army who received funds for espionage from China was sentenced to 7 years and 6 months in prison after he pledged to surrender in the event of war.