Posted on 02/09/2024 9:05:00 PM PST by SeekAndFind
A Chinese-born researcher has been arrested for allegedly stealing trade secret technologies developed for the U.S. government to detect nuclear missile launches and to track ballistic and hypersonic missiles, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ).
Chenguang Gong, 57, of San Jose, California, was arrested in San Jose on Feb. 6, prosecutors said.
Mr. Gong became a U.S. citizen in 2011. He got his master’s degree in electrical engineering from Clemson University and completed some work toward a doctorate at Stanford University, according to court documents.
From January 2023 to April 2023, Mr. Gong worked as an engineer for a research and development company based in Malibu, California. The company was referred to only as the “victim company” by the DOJ and in court documents.
Court documents said much of the company’s work—the development of infrared sensor technology for space-based and military missions for missile detection—was funded through contacts with the Pentagon and other government contracts.
Mr. Gong allegedly transferred 3,600 files from his work laptop to three personal storage devices from March 2023 to April 2023, according to court documents. Hundreds of documents marked as confidential or proprietary belonging to the company were discovered on devices taken from his temporary residence in Thousand Oaks, California, following an FBI search in May 2023.
The DOJ said the technology allegedly stolen by Mr. Gong would be “dangerous to U.S. national security if obtained by international actors.”
“Many of the files Gong allegedly transferred contained proprietary and trade secret information related to the development and design of a readout integrated circuit that allows space-based systems to detect missile launches and track ballistic and hypersonic missiles while providing resilience and a readout integrated circuit that allows aircraft to track incoming threats in low visibility environments,” the DOJ stated.
Other files were related to the development of the company’s “next-generation sensors,” which can “detect low observable targets while demonstrating improved survivability in strategic space applications,” the court document says.
The information Mr. Gong allegedly stole was among the company’s “most important trade secrets,” worth hundreds of millions of dollars, the DOJ said, adding that some of the files were marked “EXPORT CONTROLLED.”
“The theft of trade secrets, especially of sensitive military technology, undermines our national security, erodes U.S. competitiveness in the global market, and harms the businesses and individuals who have invested time, resources, and creativity into developing innovative technologies,” Donald Alway, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office, said in a statement.
After becoming aware of his activities, the company terminated Mr. Gong’s employment in late April 2023.
According to the DOJ, Mr. Gong is charged with theft of trade secrets, which, if he’s convicted, carries a statutory maximum penalty of 10 years in federal prison.
He was released on $2.5 million bond with location monitoring and curfew on Feb. 7 following a hearing in San Jose, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles said, according to NBC News.
The FBI also uncovered Mr. Gong’s employment history in China. For three years in the 1990s, Mr. Gong was a “government employee” of a provincial-level association under the leadership of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials in China’s eastern province of Zhejiang, according to court documents.
Before joining the Malibu-based company last year, Mr. Gong worked for “a number of prominent U.S. technology companies, as well as an international defense, aerospace, and security company,” according to court documents.
While employed in the United States, Mr. Gong repeatedly contacted Chinese authorities. According to court documents, he submitted “numerous applications” for China’s “Talent Programs” from 2014 to 2022.
The regime in Beijing offers hefty financial incentives—including research funding, salaries, and housing—via many different talent recruitment programs to entice overseas Chinese and foreign experts into working in China’s science and tech sectors. The CCP hopes to quickly turn China into an industrial and innovation powerhouse through these programs, one that ultimately outperforms Western countries.
The FBI has long warned about these Chinese programs, saying that they encourage trade secret theft and economic espionage.
“Talent plans usually involve undisclosed and illegal transfers of information, technology, or intellectual property that are one-way and detrimental to U.S. institutions,” the FBI says on its website.
In recent years, federal authorities have prosecuted academics who have allegedly concealed their links to China’s talent programs.
In 2017, Mr. Gong wrote to the 38th Research Institute of the state-run China Electronics Technology Group Corp. requesting funding. He stated that he “would like to apply for funding for entrepreneurial teams” to develop high-performance analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converters similar to those produced by his U.S. employer, according to court documents.
He told the institute that he would use the funding for his startup company, which would “become the leader in the field of data converters in China, providing customization for the military and civilian fields,” according to court documents.
Mr. Gong traveled to China twice to participate in talent program conferences in 2019. In an email translated from Chinese to English by the FBI, Mr. Gong remarked that he “took a risk” by traveling to China to participate in the Talent Programs “because [he] worked for ... an American military industry company” and thought he could “do something” to contribute to China’s “high-end military integrated circuits,” according to the DOJ.
In a 2020 talent program application, Mr. Gong proposed to develop “low light/night vision” image sensors for use in military night vision goggles and civilian applications, according to the DOJ.
“In a video presentation included with Gong’s [2020] submission, Gong used a video containing the model number of a sensor developed by an international defense, aerospace, and security company where Gong worked from 2015 to 2019,” the DOJ said.
“We will do everything to protect our nation’s security, including from foreign threats,” Martin Estrada, U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, said in a statement.
“We know that foreign actors, including the PRC [People’s Republic of China], are actively seeking to steal our technology, but we will remain vigilant against this threat ... by safeguarding the innovations of American businesses and researchers.”
Glad they caught this guy. Now we are safe from Chinese spying.
He stole the data but more importantly, did it make its way to China?
Every Chinese national in the USA is a potential spy. Every single one of them in fact is more likely than not (especially the grad students in STEM fields).
The USA already has millions of them living here, just waiting for when China declares war against the USA. How many of them have ties to Senatorial staff (Dianne Feinstein just one example).
https://www.aei.org/op-eds/explain-the-chinese-spy-sen-feinstein/
That was espionage, not trade theft
Apparently the FBI does more rigorous checks on Americans who flew into a DC area airport on Jan 6 2021…than they do on foreign nationals hired as defense contractor employees
He became a US citizen in 2011, obama regime
Somehow these are different from NON-nuclear ones??
Unless he walked across the border at El Paso.
Having family and loved ones hostage in the PRC is a powerful incentive...
Hughes Malibu campus?
They make a point of not saying...
HRL Laboratories is a research center in Malibu, California, established in 1960. Formerly the research arm of Hughes Aircraft, it is currently owned by General Motors Corporation and Boeing. It is housed in two large, white multi-story buildings overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
Chinese Americans should never get security clearances if they are less than third generation Americans unless they can show that have NO family still in China. Americans of Chinese descent are all pressured by the CCP to send back to China everything they learn in order to prevent persecution of their relatives in China.
No. No execution. Just take more care when letting people with families in China handle sensitive information. If they do not send back all the information they encounter their relatives still in China pay a heavy price. China blackmails all its American emigrants. A Chinese who does not care about his ancestors and living relatives is a psychopath and also likely not a good security risk.
Actually, no. He will still have to relay all sorts of data and stuff he reads in the news back to China. CCP demands ALL information about America and Americans for their now AI powered data bank.
Most Chinese immigrants, those not wetbacks, are good citizens with the caveat that their relatives in China are held hostage to their provision of all information they receive.
I would like to know how many thousands there are just like him.
That’s not what I was addressing at all.
Thank you for not saying "chink in one's armor". I can see where "chink in one's armor" could be taken the wong way, so it's best to avoid saying "chink in one's armor" altogether.
I was replying to the words you write. if you had some alternate meaning in mind you should have written it that way. ALL Chinese in America are “assets” if they have family in China. China prioritizes tech and Pentagon secrets but wants to have all data about America and Americans. it makes manipulation progressively more skillful.
I’m talking about this story about this asset after he is caught and convicted to 10 years in prison.
Shipping his head to China at that point is not going to do anything other than invite China to be equally barbaric with our spies.
Yes, indeed.
Wow so while the FBI was spying on Americans looking for words like Maga, Trump, J6, Bibles, they just found out about this traitors work history in China?
Insane, so much for back ground checks.
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