The Hsinchu District Prosecutors Office has indicted 38 people and two companies, alleging that they formed a syndicate to illegally dump construction waste at multiple sites across Hsinchu County — bad news for the local environment and for the owners of the land that was occupied.

• Prosecutors found that a man surnamed Su and others divided up the work of locating land, arranging vehicles, transporting the waste and burying it, using land levelling and landscaping work as cover for the dumping.
• The syndicate's illegal proceeds exceeded NT$100 million. Prosecutors have seized NT$2.88 million in cash as well as real estate, and seven defendants are being held in detention.
• Beipu, Xinpu, Baoshan, Guanxi and Qionglin all became dumping grounds, some of them agricultural and pastoral land within hillside conservation areas.
• The operators charged by the truckload, backfilling soil mixed with plastic, glass, polystyrene foam, tiles and water pipes; more than 100 truckloads went into a single site in Guanxi alone.
• Some even openly solicited soil and rubble on Facebook, inviting operators to come and dump it.

Outlook: The case has been prosecuted under the Waste Disposal Act, the Soil and Water Conservation Act and the Slopeland Conservation and Utilization Act, and prosecutors will continue to trace the proceeds of the crime.