Taiwanese prosecutors want to arrest Pete Lau. The OnePlus CEO allegedly ran an illegal hiring operation that quietly scooped up more than 70 engineers from the island over the past decade. The Shilin District Prosecutors Office dropped the warrant, charging Lau under Taiwan’s Cross-Strait Act. This law governs how businesses from mainland China can operate in Taiwan. Two Taiwanese nationals who reportedly helped Lau have also been indicted, according to Bloomberg.Here’s what prosecutors say happened. OnePlus allegedly created a shell company in Hong Kong with a completely different name. Then in 2015, it opened a branch in Taiwan without bothering to get government approval. The team there worked on smartphone software, running tests and verification for OnePlus devices.
OnePlus required Taiwan’s approval to hire local workers, which it didn’t
That’s the catch. Under the Cross-Strait Act, any mainland Chinese company needs explicit permission from Taiwanese authorities to recruit local talent. Prosecutors claim OnePlus skipped this step entirely while quietly building its engineering bench.Lau isn’t some obscure executive either. He co-founded OnePlus and turned it into a brand that smartphone enthusiasts actually care about. These days, he also runs the product division at Oppo, which made OnePlus an independent sub-brand back in 2021.
Taiwan cracking down hard on Chinese firms eyeing its chip talent
This warrant fits into a bigger pattern. Taiwan has been aggressively going after what it sees as talent poaching by Chinese tech companies. The island’s semiconductor engineers are basically a national treasure at this point.Last August, authorities opened investigations into 16 Chinese companies for allegedly targeting high-tech workers. And in 2025, prosecutors issued a similar warrant for Grace Wang, the chair of Apple supplier Luxshare Precision Industry.OnePlus says business continues as usual despite the probe. Lau hasn’t said anything publicly.