TAIPEI — ROC (Taiwan)’s National Security Bureau (NSB) is investigating whether criminal gangs and private-investigation firms acting as local networks in cases of transnational repression were directed and funded by the Chinese Communist Party, the bureau’s Director-General Tsai Ming-yen told reporters at parliament on Thursday, October 22.
Speaking a day after New Taipei prosecutors indicted five people over a staged car attack on comedian Huang Yi-hao, who had mocked Chinese President Xi Jinping, Tsai said the local networks that cooperate in incidents like the comedian attack are mostly criminal gangs, or private investigation firms linked to organised crime.
“The National Security Bureau is more concerned with whether anyone behind them has been directed and funded by the Chinese Communist Party. How to dismantle the entire criminal group and network is a key focus for us,” Tsai said, in remarks reported by Reuters. Whether the Chinese Communist Party in fact directed or funded any of these networks is a claim under investigation by the bureau; it has not been established in court.
Tsai also said ROC (Taiwan) may need to amend its laws to deal with such activities. “Comprehensively curbing the Chinese communists’ transnational repression in Taiwan’s democratic and rule-of-law society is also very important, and the legal framework for it has been lacking,” he said.
Some 100 cases listed, and an information-warfare claim
Era News, reporting the same October 22 statements in Chinese, added details not carried in the Reuters wire. According to Era News, the bureau has listed about 100 cases that it hopes to refer to judicial authorities for investigation before the year-end local elections. Era News also reported the bureau’s account of a Chinese company, “Zhongke Tianji,” which the bureau said holds some 20 million ROC (Taiwan) household-registration records and uses artificial intelligence to sort residents into categories for tailored information-warfare narratives. Those figures and the company claim are the bureau’s account as reported by Era News; the Free China Movement has not independently verified them.
Era News further reported that Huang Yi-hao, identifying himself as a native of Hualien, publicly called on Kuomintang caucus leader Fu Kun-chi to promote related legislation — and that Fu pushed back, criticising the government for, in his account, creating panic and demanding that it speak with evidence and pursue responsibility on the facts. The exchange underlines that the bureau’s claims are politically contested inside ROC (Taiwan), even as the underlying criminal case proceeds.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment, and has not responded to previous questions on the assault on Huang.
Background: the Huang Yi-hao indictment
On October 21, New Taipei prosecutors indicted five people, alleging that a mainland Chinese individual identified only as “K” paid NT$450,000 for local collaborators to track Huang Yi-hao by GPS and ram him with a car on September 11, intending to break his arms and legs and stop a September 20 performance mocking Xi Jinping. Huang was lightly injured. Prosecutors have sought sentences of two years and seven months to five years and six months. The alleged Chinese direction of the attack is the prosecutors’ allegation; the defendants have not been convicted.
Other China critics in ROC (Taiwan) have also been attacked, Reuters noted, including Hong Kong singer and activist Denise Ho, who was attacked in Taipei in 2019 by a masked man who threw red paint at her.
Related coverage
- Prosecutors in ROC (Taiwan) Indict Five Over Staged Car Attack on Comedian Who Mocked Xi Jinping
- Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council Accuses the PRC (Mainland) of a “New Method” of Transnational Repression
- Canada’s House of Commons Passes Bill C-219
Sources
- Reuters, October 22, 2026 — Taiwan probes organised crime links to China’s “transnational repression”
- Era News, October 22, 2026 — https://www.eracom.com.tw/EraNews/Home/political/2026-10-22/2503614.html
- Reuters, October 21, 2026 — Taiwan indicts 5 for attack on comedian who satirized China’s Xi