Chinese Professors Charged with Stealing U.S. Technology
WASHINGTON, May 19 (UPI) — Six Chinese nationals, including three college professors, were indicted on charges of conspiracy to steal technology from the United States to benefit the Chinese government, the U.S. Department of Justice said.
Hao Zhang, 36, of Tianjin University was arrested Saturday after flying from China to Los Angeles to speak at a conference. The Department of Justice said Hao and the others worked together in a “long-running effort to obtain U.S. trade secrets for the benefit of universities and companies controlled by the [People’s Republic of China] government. The other defendants are believed to be in China.
“According to the charges in the indictment, the defendants leveraged their access to and knowledge of sensitive U.S. technologies to illegally obtain and share U.S. trade secrets with the PRC for economic advantage,” said Assistant Attorney General Carlin. “Economic espionage imposes great costs on American businesses, weakens the global marketplace and ultimately harms U.S. interests worldwide.”
Investigators said Hao, along with two other defendants, met while obtaining engineering degrees from the University of Southern California and took jobs at the Colorado-based Avago Technologies and Skyworks Solutions Inc. in Massachusetts.
The three others remained in China, allegedly to establish the company in China to profit from the stolen U.S. technology that filters communications on mobile phones and other devices to make them more secure, called film bulk acoustic resonator (FBAR). The technology has applications in military communications with research funding from the U.S. Department of Defense. The alleged stolen secrets belong to the two companies, the indictment said.
The 32-count indictment alleges that beginning in 2006, Hao and Wei Pang, 35, established a business plan and solicited Chinese universities for partnerships to begin manufacturing. In 2008, Tianjin University officials agreed to support the defendants in establishing a FBRA fabrication facility in China, the DOJ alleges.
“Pang and Zhang continued to work for Avago and Skyworks in close coordination with Tianjin University. In mid-2009, both Pang and Zhang simultaneously resigned from the U.S. companies and accepted positions as full professors at Tianjin University. Tianjin University later formed a joint venture with Pang, Zhang and others under the company name ROFS Microsystem intending to mass produce FBARs,” the DOJ said.
The indictment alleges the men and the others “stole recipes, source code, specifications, presentations, design layouts and other documents marked as confidential and proprietary” to benefit the Chinese government and Tianjin University, a government-run school.
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