Taiwan ends probe into reports of illegal sales to Iran

An agency under the Taiwan economic ministry pledged the investigation last month due in part to a report in the London Daily Telegraph that said Iran had set up a nuclear-equipment smuggling network using Taiwan companies.

The government has found no evidence that local firms sold anything from a list of 408 banned products to Iran, a project manager with the ministry's Foreign Trade Bureau told Reuters.

"Unless we get a more reliable tip, from an investigation point of view, the case is closed," the manager said.

Intelligence received last month pointed only back to a case wrapped up in March, he said.

That month the government found Taiwan-based Heli-Ocean Technology Co Ltd had agreed to sell 108 pressure transducers to a Chinese firm that would sell them onward to Iran, he said. Transducers convert pressure into electrical signals.

Heli-Ocean had committed no crime but was urged to stop the sales, some of which were still in the pipeline, he said.