Twenty-two Taiwanese nationals, some of them former Vietnamese citizens, have been charged for forging birth certificates of Vietnamese children, in order to bring them into Taiwan.

Taiwanese police had been investigating the case for months before making arrests.

They found that 14 Vietnamese Taiwanese nationals each paid between 3000 and $7000 US dollars to brokers in Vietnam to make fake birth certificates.

These birth certificates allowed for 17 children from relatives and families in Vietnam to be disguised as their own children, therefore making them eligible for Taiwanese passports.

Of these 17 children, 14 were allowed to enter Taiwan on the fake birth certificates, and 11 eventually obtained Taiwanese citizenship.

The remaining three did not have their applications approved.

While immigration officials accuse the suspects of violating human trafficking laws, the Yunlin District Prosecutors Office does not believe this.

This is because the children were all relatives of the suspects, and they were not brought over to partake in exploitative labour.