Air force officers sentenced over China espionage

Three air force officers were handed prison sentences ranging from two to eight-and-a-half years yesterday by the Kaohsiung branch of the High Court for China-related espionage.

The suspects were found to have provided information to a loan shark, who prosecutors said was acting under the direction of Chinese intelligence personnel.

Beginning in 2019, the loan shark, surnamed Huang (黃), acted under the instructions of a Chinese intelligence handler to operate an illegal lending business in Taiwan as a front to target active-duty military personnel, prosecutors said.

Huang used online advertisements to approach military personnel in urgent need of money, helping them to pay off gambling debts or giving them bonuses in exchange for classified information, they said.

The information leaked included documents related to the annual Han Kuang military exercises, they added.

Investigators from the Ciaotou District Prosecutors’ Office searched 41 locations and ordered the detention of the military personnel involved between December 2023 and September 2024.

The case was later transferred to the Kaohsiung branch of the High Prosecutors’ Office, which indicted Huang’s sister and three retired or active-duty military officers and non-commissioned officers on charges including contraventions of the National Security Act (國安法).

Huang remains a wanted fugitive.

One air force captain serving as an operations officer with the Seventh Flight Training Wing leaked military aircraft documents on two occasions between 2022 and 2023, receiving NT$200,000 (US$6,220) in bribes, the court said.

He was sentenced to eight years and six months in prison and his civil rights were deprived for four years for leaking military secrets.

Additionally, an air force staff sergeant serving in the Sixth Radar Squadron provided multiple records in September and October 2021 in exchange for NT$205,000 in bribes, including the cancelation of NT$100,000 in debt, the court said.

He was sentenced to eight years in prison and his civil rights were deprived for four years.

Another air force staff sergeant assigned to the Second Wing’s logistics section accessed classified records from a major’s government-issued computer in December 2023, the High Court said.

He was sentenced to two years in prison for gathering classified information on behalf of Chinese intelligence personnel.

The loan shark’s sister, also surnamed Huang, was sentenced to between four and 10 months on multiple money laundering convictions.

The court found that she was employed by a bank at the time of the offenses and had repeatedly concealed the flow of payments to military personnel.

She was also convicted of aggravated money laundering after the court found that Huang and her mother withdrew more than NT$1 million in cash through an underground remittance channel at a Kaohsiung gold shop to evade reporting requirements.

All rulings may be appealed.