TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Chinese media reported that on Jan. 28 at the 13th People’s Congress of Jiangsu Province, the Jiangsu People’s Procuratorate Inspector-General, Liu Hua (劉華), made a public announcement concerning a major espionage case that was discovered in 2017 involving Taiwan.

The inspector general said that in Jiangsu cases prosecuting “anti-separatist, anti-infiltration, anti-subversion, anti-secret society, and cyber-crime” numbered 145 cases involving 255 people last year. Among them, two suspects have been charged by the Suzhou City Procuratorate for military espionage in service of Taiwan.

According to Chinese media outlet Xinhua, the two people charged have been identified as Ma Liangliang (馬亮亮) and Liang Xin (梁鑫). They were reportedly recruited by Taiwanese operative Wu Rongtong (吳榮同) in 2016 and knowingly provided sensitive information regarding the PLA to Wu via email.

According to reports, the operation began in July 2016, after Liang met Wu while employed in Hebei.

Allegedly, the two suspects were using QQ and other online platforms to send information to Wu regarding the training of the People’s Armed Police (PAP), their deployment and strategic operations. According to Upmedia, the correspondence also included sensitive information on military weapons and its testing.

The Jiangsu Inspector-General stated that Ma and Liang were charged with espionage in May 2017 and the court case is currently underway. Under China’s criminal law, they are not likely to receive less than 10 years imprisonment, and may be given the death penalty.

The whereabouts of alleged Taiwanese spy, Wu Rongtong, were not addressed by the Jiangsu Procuratorate Inspector-General.