Taiwan indicts 10 over alleged US chip smuggling to China weapons programs

Taiwanese prosecutors indicted 10 executives over an alleged scheme that ordered military-grade Texas Instruments and Analog Devices chips in the name of Taiwan's Chung-Shan defence institute and diverted them to Chinese missile and radar programs.

Why it matters: The case is Taiwan's largest chip-export-control prosecution and exposes how sanctioned hardware moved through forged end-user statements and false "Made in Taiwan" relabelling, raising the stakes for distributor compliance.

Data as of Single-sourced from Tom's Hardware (published Oct 8, 2026); no individual defendant names and no court date announced; neither Texas Instruments nor Analog Devices has commented.

The 10 defendants, former employees and trading partners of three Taiwan distributors for Texas Instruments and Analog Devices, allegedly ordered military-grade analog and radio-frequency chips using the name of the National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology, with false written promises of no export to US-sanctioned parties, then shipped the parts through Hong Kong and mainland-controlled buyers after relabelling them “Made in Taiwan” despite manufacture in the US, Thailand, the Philippines and South Korea.

Prosecutors are seeking 2 to 10 years for each defendant and confiscation of alleged gains, which totalled up to NT$135.83 million for the largest of three groups, with the trial to be held at the New Taipei District Court; charges were brought under fraud, forgery and money-laundering law because breaking US export controls is not itself a crime in Taiwan.

Taiwan indicts 10 over alleged US chip smuggling to China weapons programs

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