Here’s How The Malaysian USB-Inventor Got In Trouble In Taiwan
Father of pendrive staring at 3 years and 10 months of prison term.
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The Malaysian who created the world’s first pen drive, Datuk Pua Khein Seng, was sentenced to two years jail by a court in Taiwan.
According to Taiwan media Liberty Times, the famed inventor made false company reports and announcements under Article 171 of the Securities and Exchange Act.
Accordingly, courts say the chairman of a well-known memory chip maker had instructed his subordinates to falsify accounting transactions between 2009 and 2014.
Pua was also sentenced to a one year and 10 months jail term for the offence of making false entries in a civil servant’s report.
The Hsinchu District court meted out the sentence.
How it went corrupted
The case was first investigated in August 2016.
When the case was closed in August the following year, the public prosecutor’s office decided to suspend the prosecution and impose a penalty of NT$110 million (RM16.3 million).
They deemed that Pua had no previous convictions and did not make any illegal profits.
The case was sent to the upper level of the public prosecutor’s office for review, but they considered the investigation incomplete and requested further investigation.
The prosecutor’s office later concluded that Pua had violated the Securities and Exchange Act.
The investigation found that Pua – to use funds freely and reduce the financial cost of the company he set up – came up with the idea of transferring the funds to his Hong Kong subsidiary.
He then instructed his staff to arrange false transactions from 2009 to 2014, resulting in inaccurate accounting, bookkeeping and financial statements of his company.
In addition, Pua was sentenced to two years imprisonment for the offence of misrepresenting declaration and announcement under Article 171(1)(1) of the Securities and Exchange Act.
Pua said in a statement yesterday that he had not yet received the verdict and has yet to find out the reasons for the jail sentence and the fine imposed on him.
He added that his company would continue to operate as usual and not be affected by the verdict.
A simple Malaysian from Klang
Pua is from Sekinchan, Selangor and was born in 1974. He came from a modest family and attended Pin Hwa High School, Klang. He went to Taiwan at the age of 19 to study at the Chiao Tung National University.
He covered his tuition fees by doing part-time work throughout his three years studying at Chiao Tung.
But he earned a meagre NTD 80 (RM8) per hour, and almost couldn’t pursue a master’s degree for lack of money.
Thankfully, his perseverance paid off. His teachers at Chiao Tong University also recognised his talent.
After earning a master’s degree, he taken in by one of the professors to work as a memory controller researcher.
Soon after, he left the company over office politics and internal shortcomings.
Formatting his own company
His skills and determination continue to gain attention, and he was offered a lead role in another company.
At the time, shareholders were sceptical of the start-up and refused to provide the financial support he and his partners needed.
Not giving up, Pua and his friends raised NTD 6 million (RM893,000) from their relatives, friends and personal savings. As a result of their efforts, Phison Electronics was founded by him and four others in November 2000. He was 27. The company became famous after producing a 5-in-1 card reader.
In 2002, their renowned pendrive invention debuted.
This simple data stick changed the world forever. Previous data storage devices (such as disks) were impractical due to limited storage capacity.
Although USB storage devices have been researched and manufactured in Israel and the United States, he came up with the first single chip USB flash memory storage device.
Phison left a deep impression in the industry and attracted investments from giants such as Toshiba and M-systems.
Pua is currently chairman at Phison. He also owns several other companies.
To this day, Phison continues to provide the latest storage solutions, including embedded NAND flash memories for cars.
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