Retired, suspended Taipei officers indicted over data leaks

Taipei, Aug. 31 (CNA) The Taipei District Prosecutors Office on Monday indicted a retired police detective and a suspended police officer for allegedly leaking personal data to members of a crime syndicate in exchange for more than NT$7 million (US$218,000).

The indictment identified them as Cheng (鄭), a detective who served at the Taipei Police Department's Wanhua Precinct from March 2018 to March 2025 before retiring in May, and Liu (劉), an officer who is currently suspended from his position at the Nangang police precinct.

Prosecutors said Cheng was introduced to an underground money lender surnamed Chang (張) in 2018.

At the time, Chang asked Cheng to obtain the communication records of individuals for NT$8,000 per phone number. Because Cheng lacked the necessary access privileges, however, he later enlisted Liu to help retrieve the records.

After Liu obtained hundreds of call records, he gave them to Cheng, who uploaded them to an email account and used a code word to notify an individual surnamed Shih (施). The files were then downloaded and saved to a USB drive, prosecutors said.

Chang later allegedly paid Cheng NT$4.14 million in cash for the effort, either in person or by leaving the money in a post office box. Cheng then kept NT$1.55 million and gave the remaining NT$2.59 million to Liu, prosecutors said.

Cheng later received a similar request from another money lender surnamed Chen (陳), who asked him to provide the information in exchange for compensation, prosecutors said, noting that Cheng subsequently received NT$1.14 million while Liu got NT$1.91 million.

The two received a combined total of about NT$7.2 million in illicit proceeds, prosecutors alleged, and were charged with accepting bribes in connection with their official duties under the Anti-Corruption Act, as well as other offenses under the Personal Data Protection Act.

The three suspects -- Chang, Shih and Chen -- have been linked to Kuo Che-min (郭哲敏), who operated the "88 Lounge" private club in Taipei that has since been shut down.

Kuo was arrested in Thailand in July 2023 and repatriated to Taiwan after Taipei prosecutors accused him of handling about NT$2.7 billion in underground foreign currency transactions.

In late May, the Taiwan High Court sentenced him to nine years and eight months in prison, a ruling prosecutors are currently appealing to the Supreme Court.