Taiwan Indicts 34 in Scheme That Faked Waste Disposal With “Site Loops”

KAOHSIUNG — Kaohsiung prosecutors have indicted 34 people and six companies over a scheme that allegedly created photographic evidence of construction waste being properly disposed of while the waste was dumped on farmland instead.

The method was simple. Truck drivers were told to enter authorized soil and gravel facilities, tilt their truck beds and leave without unloading, producing images that appeared to show correct disposal, prosecutors said in an indictment released Thursday.

The waste went to farmland in Daliao District. Prosecutors say the operation excavated the land to a depth of about four meters to create space, then dumped 1,938 truckloads — roughly 18,600 cubic meters.

Landowners were allegedly paid NT$200 to NT$400 per truckload and told the material could be used to raise their land level.

The part that defeats a regulatory system is what the licensed facilities did.

Operators of the two authorized soil and gravel sites stamped the disposal manifests and entered false records into the government's construction remaining soil and stone information system, prosecutors said. The main suspect, a man surnamed Huang, allegedly paid them fees for permitting what the indictment calls "site loops."

Taiwan's system, like comparable ones elsewhere, tracks construction waste by requiring manifests signed at licensed disposal points. It relies on those operators to record what they receive. Once they are participants, the paper trail confirms compliance rather than detecting its absence.

Based on manifests seized during the investigation, prosecutors estimated 4,045 truck trips involving illegal dumping over a three-month period, generating more than NT$62 million in illicit profits — about US$1.97 million.

The waste came from public projects.

Huang signed a contract with a construction company in 2024 to handle removal and disposal of waste from the construction of a multistory parking facility at Kaohsiung International Airport, according to the indictment. In 2025 he represented a company that took on a similar contract for waste from a social housing project in Zuoying District.

Both are publicly commissioned works. The disposal fees were paid, the manifests were stamped, and the material was buried under farmland in a neighboring district.

Prosecutors indicted Huang, his company, the operators of the two authorized facilities and others, alleging violations of the Waste Disposal Act among other laws. They recommended prison sentences of more than four years and 10 months for Huang and other key defendants.