TSMC Motorcycle Bomber Gets Nine Years in Prison

An individual found to have prepared and remotely detonated a bomb at a TSMC fab has been sentenced to prison. The bombing was apparently motivated by a grudge held by one TSMC employee against another.

Last year, a bomb went off in a parking lot at TSMC Fab 12 in Hsinchu, Taiwan. A person sustained serious injuries, others were affected, and there was collateral damage around the explosion area. It didn’t take long for the police to apprehend a suspect, finding evidence of bomb-making and materials in their dorm. On Wednesday, Taiwan’s UDN news reported that the suspected motorcycle bomber had been sentenced to nine years in prison.

The story goes that Mr. Lai became annoyed at a work colleague called Mr. Chen. Lai was reportedly “dissatisfied with his colleague” for idling at work and ignoring him. Perhaps one person taking it easy made work more difficult for others in the vocations these men worked in.

Lai’s simmering resentment must have grown to inspire him to carry out an extreme act. The court found that he used gunpowder and other pyrotechnic substances as the foundation for a remote-controlled bomb.

On January 14, 2022, Lai was said to have surveyed the TSMC car park and lay in wait for Chen to return to his motorcycle after his shift ended. Inside the motorcycle, Lai had put his remote-controlled bomb in the front basket, according to the machine translation of the UDN report. Lai detonated the bomb as Chen approached the vehicle at 5 p.m. that day.

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Above: Taiwan TV news report on the TSMC motorcycle park bombing last year

In some ways, Chen was lucky, as Lai is said to have detonated the motorcycle bomb when he was still 30 meters away (about 100 ft) from it. Nevertheless, Chen suffered some terrible injuries, including that his right little finger had to be partially amputated, shrapnel entered his chin, and sustained injuries to his abdomen, arm, and forehead.

Some other people were affected by the blast, according to the UDN report on the incident. Leaving work simultaneously, most other people got away with damage to their clothes. The only other significant damage noted by the source was an Apple iPhone, which “got blown apart.”

The prosecutor in the case wanted Lai tried for attempted murder. However, the judge reasoned that Lai did not want to kill Chen, and the scale of his injuries wasn’t very serious. The court case concluded with Lai being sentenced to nine years in prison. Also, Lai won’t be allowed to vote or hold public office for seven years.

This isn’t our first report where TSMC and bombs are involved. Earlier this year, we reported on a curious work practice where machine inspectors had to find ‘bombs’ in chipmaking equipment. We also recently reported on the potential geopolitical issues of the USA bombing TSMC facilities if they were to fall into the hands of communist China.