Taipei: The former head of Taiwan's representative office in Guam, Paul Chen, was indicted for allegedly claiming personal expenses as official expenditures, misappropriating public property, and fraudulently obtaining housing subsidies.
According to Focus Taiwan, the Taipei District Prosecutors Office revealed that Chen knowingly filed false rental subsidy applications during a previous posting in Los Angeles between January 2011 and August 2016. Despite purchasing a personal residence there in January 2011, regulations required him to declare the property and limited his housing subsidy entitlement to US$671 per month. However, Chen claimed monthly subsidies of US$2,123 and later US$2,431, receiving excess payments totaling US$104,427.61 during the period.
Prosecutors further alleged that Chen, as the first director-general of the reopened Guam office, submitted personal receipts disguised as official procurement documents between November 2020 and April 2022 to obtain reimbursements through office start-up and operating expense accounts. Through this scheme, he fraudulently obtained reimbursements totaling US$4,180.76.
In addition, Chen is accused of misappropriating government-purchased items from the Guam office, including an iPhone, a vacuum cleaner, a coffee machine, and an iPad Pro, with a combined value of US$10,476.99. Chen allegedly committed these acts while serving as director-general of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) in Guam from September 2020 to January 2024.
In a separate scheme, prosecutors stated that Chen fabricated records of guests attending diplomatic, overseas community, and consular affairs functions between December 2020 and January 2024. This enabled him to fraudulently claim US$11,305.62 in reimbursements.
Chen was charged under the Anti-Corruption Act with fraudulently obtaining property by exploiting his official position and misappropriating public property. He was also charged with causing a public official to make false entries in official documents under the Criminal Code.
Also indicted were Lu Chi-chang, first secretary at Taiwan's representative office in Guam, and former vice consul Gary Huang, on charges of causing public officials to make false entries in official documents. Prosecutors additionally requested summary judgment proceedings against Huang.
Prosecutors indicated that Chen, Lu, and Huang knowingly failed to conduct physical inventories of state-owned property at the Guam office in 2022 and 2023. Despite this, Lu allegedly completed annual self-inspection forms stating that office staff had conducted inventories and verified that all assets matched official records. Prosecutors noted that these false statements undermined MOFA's property management system.