Former Hsinchu District Prosecutors Office Designer Sentenced to 3 Years for Procurement Fraud

A former designer at the Hsinchu District Prosecutors Office, surnamed Chen, was sentenced to three years in prison and five years of deprivation of civil rights for falsifying inspection documents and bid-rigging in small-scale procurement cases. The Hsinchu District Court ruled that Chen, who was responsible for IT equipment maintenance between 2020 and early 2024, violated conflict-of-interest regulations by conspiring with a man surnamed Tseng to use a third-party name to win bids, while Chen performed the actual maintenance work. Chen then had an engineer named Lin stamp the falsified inspection forms to facilitate payments, totaling NT$98,700, which Chen and Tseng split. The court emphasized that as a public servant, Chen abused his position, severely damaging the fairness of government procurement. While the two accomplices received suspended sentences due to their cooperation, they were ordered to pay fines to the public treasury. The case remains subject to appeal.