Egg Import Corruption Probe Escalates: Taipei Prosecutors Summon Three Key Officials as Defendants for Criminal Profiteering, Including Former Minister Chen Chi-chung

On October 28, 2024 (113th Year of the Republic of China), the Taipei District Prosecutors Office achieved a major breakthrough in its criminal investigation into allegations of illicit profiteering in the Ministry of Agriculture's emergency egg import program involving Ultrafast Biotech (Chao-Szu). Prosecutors summoned three top agricultural figures—former Minister of Agriculture Chen Chi-chung, former National Animal Industry Foundation Chairman Lin Tsung-hsien, and current Minister of Agriculture Chen Junne-jih—as criminal defendants facing charges under the Anti-Corruption Act. Investigators revealed that officials bypassed the Government Procurement Act to award lucrative multimillion-dollar Brazilian egg import contracts to Ultrafast Biotech, an obscure one-person firm capitalized at merely NT$500,000, while allegedly falsifying freight and import costs. Although the three officials were released without bail following a three-hour interrogation, having current and former cabinet ministers booked as criminal corruption defendants provoked nationwide outrage, with lawmakers demanding full accountability for state-subsidized cronyism.