Taiwan Audit Officer Uses AI, ChatGPT and Free App to Expose $47M Procurement Fraud in New Taipei City Government

A young audit officer in Taiwan’s Audit Department used artificial intelligence (AI), ChatGPT, and a free image cleaning app to uncover extensive procurement fraud within the New Taipei City government. The officer, Wu Xin-Mei, leveraged ChatGPT to write a Python script to analyze nearly 2 million court judgements. This helped identify companies with criminal records that were still winning public contracts due to administrative gaps. Further, Wu used a free app to compare thousands of project completion photos, discovering that contractors had submitted identical or highly similar images as proof for separate projects, suggesting document falsification. Out of 18 identified suspicious procurement cases totaling over TWD 150 million (approx. USD 47 million), 16 involved suspected fake documentation. Following these findings, the city has begun legal action against the implicated companies and is considering integrating similar AI-based verification into future audit workflows. This case highlights both the potential of AI for governmental anti-corruption efforts and the challenges of data security and policy adaptation within the public sector. For crypto traders, this news signals a growing institutional trend toward corruption detection via AI and digital tools, which may positively impact investor trust and foster digital transformation in public sector administration.