17 individuals, 7 companies indicted for illegal waste disposal

Taipei, June 18 (CNA) The New Taipei District Prosecutors Office on Wednesday indicted 17 individuals and seven companies on charges including illegal waste disposal, false declaration, and special breach of trust, the latter under the Securities and Exchange Act.

The case involved a publicly listed company Fulltech Fiber Glass Corp., which produces byproducts of recyclable waste glass as well as unrecyclable glass fiber on their production line, according to a news statement released by the prosecutors office.

Waste glass should be recycled by certified recyclers while glass fiber should be handled by waste clearance units.

To cut down on the high costs of properly disposing of glass fiber at the company's Yunlin County factory, a manager in Fulltech's general affairs department, surnamed Su (蘇), signed contracts on the company's behalf with several downstream firms, which were certified recyclers or waste disposal companies, that helped misrepresent the material as regular glass waste from January 2018 to December 2024, prosecutors said.

Fulltech employees subsequently filed false declarations on the three-part forms and operation records, said prosecutors.

In order to avoid the authorities detecting the illegal disposals, Su and co-conspirators deleted all records of glass fiber in the company's waste disposal proposal to the local environmental protection department, prosecutors said.

With the scheme, Fulltech reduced costs by NT$335.16 million (US$11.34 million) while downstream companies received NT$119.63 million, NT$3.04 million, NT$8.79 million and NT$4.84 million in illicit gains, said prosecutors.

Another company listed as a defendant shipped the disposed glass fiber and gained a total of NT$8.25 million.

Moreover, Su asked for kickbacks from two of the companies when he renewed contracts with them, gaining NT$6.64 million in total, prosecutors said.

(By Chao Min-ya and Wu Kuan-hsien)

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