Taiwanese prosecutors want to arrest Pete Lau. The OnePlus The CEO allegedly ran an illegal hiring operation that quietly poached more than 70 engineers from the island over the last decade. The Shilin District Prosecutor’s Office dropped the arrest warrant and charged Lau under the Taiwan Cross-Strait Law. This law regulates how companies from mainland China can operate in Taiwan. Two Taiwanese nationals who allegedly helped Lau were also charged, according to Bloomberg.Here’s what prosecutors say happened. OnePlus has reportedly set up a shell company in Hong Kong with a completely different name. Then in 2015, the company opened an office in Taiwan without bothering to seek government approval. The team there worked on smartphone software and conducted testing and verification for OnePlus devices.
OnePlus needed Taiwan’s approval to hire local workers, but this was not the case
That’s the catch. Under the Cross-Strait Act, every mainland Chinese company needs explicit permission from Taiwanese authorities to recruit local talent. Prosecutors allege that OnePlus skipped this step entirely while quietly building its technical base.Lau is not an obscure executive either. He co-founded OnePlus and turned it into a brand that smartphone enthusiasts truly care about. Today he also heads the product division at Oppo, which OnePlus turned into an independent sub-brand in 2021.
Taiwan is cracking down on Chinese companies eyeing its chip talent
This arrest warrant fits into a larger pattern. Taiwan is aggressively cracking down on what it sees as talent poaching by Chinese tech companies. The island’s semiconductor engineers are essentially a national treasure right now.In August last year, authorities opened investigations into 16 Chinese companies for allegedly targeting high-tech workers. And in 2025, prosecutors issued a similar arrest warrant against Grace Wang, the chairwoman of Apple supplier Luxshare Precision Industry.OnePlus says business is continuing as usual despite the investigation. Lau has said nothing publicly.
