BY DANIEL M. PEREZ
Journal Staff
TAIPEI, Taiwan — The Taipei District Prosecutors' Office indicted Paul Chen, former director-general of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Guam, which serves Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, for allegedly exploiting his official position to execute multiple fraud and asset misappropriation schemes totaling more than $130,000.
The indictment covers illegal activities spanning from his previous posting in Los Angeles through his tenure leading the reopened diplomatic mission, which also impacts representation across the NMI.
According to court documents, Chen knowingly filed false housing allowance applications between January 2011 and August 2016 while stationed in Los Angeles.
Prosecutors established that Chen purchased a personal residence but concealed the ownership to bypass a $671 monthly subsidy cap, instead claiming inflated monthly allowances of $2,123 and later $2,431 to fraudulently secure $104,427.61 in excess government funding.
As the first director general of the reopened Guam office, Chen allegedly continued his fraudulent practices between November 2020 and April 2022 by disguising personal receipts as official procurement documents. This specific scheme allowed him to obtain $4,180.76 in improper reimbursements from office start-up and operating expense accounts.
Furthermore, prosecutors accused Chen of directly stealing state-owned property from the Guam office between September 2020 and January 2024. The misappropriated government assets included an iPhone, a vacuum cleaner, a coffee machine, and an iPad Pro, carrying a combined valuation of $10,476.99.
In a separate line of corruption charges, Chen allegedly fabricated attendance records for official guests at various diplomatic, overseas community, and consular affairs functions from December 2020 to January 2024. This enabled him to fraudulently claim an additional $11,305.62 in public funds for entertainment expenses.
Chen faces formal charges under the Anti-Corruption Act for misappropriating public property and exploiting his official capacity to obtain property through fraud, alongside Criminal Code violations for causing a public official to make false entries in official documents.
Chen left Guam in 2024 when he was appointed the Taiwan representative to Fiji.
Two other diplomatic officials were named in the same indictment. Lu Chi-chang, first secretary at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Guam, and Gary Huang, former vice consul at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Guam, face charges for causing public officials to make false entries in official documents.
Investigation records indicate that Chen, Lu, and Huang knowingly neglected to perform mandatory physical inventories of state-owned assets at the Guam mission in 2022 and 2023. Lu subsequently completed annual self-inspection forms falsely certifying that the office staff had verified all physical assets against official records, an action that prosecutors stated severely undermined the property management system of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. mbj
Journal Staff
TAIPEI, Taiwan — The Taipei District Prosecutors' Office indicted Paul Chen, former director-general of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Guam, which serves Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, for allegedly exploiting his official position to execute multiple fraud and asset misappropriation schemes totaling more than $130,000.
The indictment covers illegal activities spanning from his previous posting in Los Angeles through his tenure leading the reopened diplomatic mission, which also impacts representation across the NMI.
According to court documents, Chen knowingly filed false housing allowance applications between January 2011 and August 2016 while stationed in Los Angeles.
Prosecutors established that Chen purchased a personal residence but concealed the ownership to bypass a $671 monthly subsidy cap, instead claiming inflated monthly allowances of $2,123 and later $2,431 to fraudulently secure $104,427.61 in excess government funding.
As the first director general of the reopened Guam office, Chen allegedly continued his fraudulent practices between November 2020 and April 2022 by disguising personal receipts as official procurement documents. This specific scheme allowed him to obtain $4,180.76 in improper reimbursements from office start-up and operating expense accounts.
Furthermore, prosecutors accused Chen of directly stealing state-owned property from the Guam office between September 2020 and January 2024. The misappropriated government assets included an iPhone, a vacuum cleaner, a coffee machine, and an iPad Pro, carrying a combined valuation of $10,476.99.
In a separate line of corruption charges, Chen allegedly fabricated attendance records for official guests at various diplomatic, overseas community, and consular affairs functions from December 2020 to January 2024. This enabled him to fraudulently claim an additional $11,305.62 in public funds for entertainment expenses.
Chen faces formal charges under the Anti-Corruption Act for misappropriating public property and exploiting his official capacity to obtain property through fraud, alongside Criminal Code violations for causing a public official to make false entries in official documents.
Chen left Guam in 2024 when he was appointed the Taiwan representative to Fiji.
Two other diplomatic officials were named in the same indictment. Lu Chi-chang, first secretary at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Guam, and Gary Huang, former vice consul at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Guam, face charges for causing public officials to make false entries in official documents.
Investigation records indicate that Chen, Lu, and Huang knowingly neglected to perform mandatory physical inventories of state-owned assets at the Guam mission in 2022 and 2023. Lu subsequently completed annual self-inspection forms falsely certifying that the office staff had verified all physical assets against official records, an action that prosecutors stated severely undermined the property management system of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. mbj
