Prosecutors indict three ex-servicemen over alleged China spy network

Taiwanese prosecutors have charged three former service members with collecting military secrets for China, saying a retired airman used an army relative and another veteran to feed Chinese handlers information on exercises and armor since late 2020.

The Taiwan High Prosecutors Office Kaohsiung Branch announced the indictments on 1 October 2026 against defendants identified only by the surnames Chen, Lu, and Mao. Prosecutors said the three face allegations under the National Security Act, the Anti-Corruption Act, the Classified National Security Information Protection Act, and the Criminal Code of the Armed Forces.

According to the prosecutors statement as reported by Focus Taiwan and Central News Agency, Chen, a retired Air Force staff sergeant, began receiving instructions and funding in late 2020 from officers linked to an intelligence organization under a Chinese Communist Party provincial committee. Prosecutors alleged he then obtained confidential military material through Lu, who was still serving in the Army at the time.

The material allegedly included army tank parameters and information related to defensive plans and the Han Kuang military exercises. Chinese-language CNA coverage described Lu as a then-serving army senior noncommissioned officer and a relative by marriage of Chen, while Focus Taiwan and Taipei Times confirmed the tank-specification and Han Kuang focus of the alleged transfers.

Prosecutors further alleged that in 2024 Chen traveled to Zhuhai, China, with Mao, a retired army captain, to attend a banquet with Chinese intelligence contacts. At that gathering, Chen allegedly urged Mao to approach serving military personnel and gather additional classified defense information as part of an effort to build an organization for China.

The case was referred for investigation in June 2026 after reports from the Kaohsiung and Tainan military police units, the Pingtung County Police Bureau Criminal Investigation Corps, and the Ministry of National Defense Political Warfare Bureau. Prosecutors said they completed digital forensics on seized evidence, checked witness and defendant statements, and reviewed financial transaction records before filing charges on 1 October.

Taipei Times, drawing on the same Kaohsiung prosecutors announcement for its 2 October print cycle, reported the same core sequence: Chen as the retired airman who allegedly took direction from Chinese provincial intelligence contacts, Lu as the then-serving army source for armor and exercise data, and Mao as the retired officer who accompanied Chen to Zhuhai in 2024.

Taiwan News, citing local reporting on the same filing, likewise described Chen as having recruited a relative and a colleague to collect Han Kuang-related secrets, and said military police and investigators spent months tracing financial flows before concluding there was enough evidence for three indictments on Thursday.

The Kaohsiung prosecutors office framed the case as part of a broader counterintelligence push against Chinese penetration of the force, saying it would keep working with the Political Warfare Bureau and related security units to disrupt similar recruitment. The indictment does not itself prove the allegations in court; the defendants will face trial on the charged statutes.

For defence readers, the filing underscores two recurring themes in Taiwanese counterespionage cases: collection focused on exercise patterns and ground-force equipment data, and the use of retired personnel to recruit or pressure still-serving relatives and acquaintances across service lines. Those patterns, if proven at trial, would illustrate how gray-zone intelligence collection can target readiness cycles and unit equipment details without requiring a large formal agent network inside the services from the outset.

This report was produced through TaiwanDefence’s automated publishing system and includes links to its supporting sources.