Chinese-Canadian Sentenced for Stealing Chemical Production Trade Secrets From American Firm

Epoch Times ^ | June 29, 2018 Updated: October 8, 2018 | Annie Wu

[Zhang Fei]

A former Chinese employee of a chemical company who pleaded guilty to conspiring to steal trade secrets has been barred from ever returning to the United States.

The News Journal of Wilmington reports Former Chemours Co worker Jerry Jindong Xu was sentenced Wednesday in Delaware federal court to 10 months in prison, the time he has already served, AP reported.

According to the indictment, the conspiracy involved sodium cyanide, a chemical used in mining and for which Chemours is the world’s largest producer.

The 48-year-old naturalized Canadian citizen who was born and raised in China pleaded guilty earlier this month to trying to steal trade secrets and sell them to Chinese investors. Prosecutors have said the conspiracy involved stealing trade secrets related to chemicals used to mine precious metals such as gold. Chemours, which spun off from the DuPont Co. in 2015, is the world’s largest producer of one of those chemicals.

He was set to be deported to Canada Wednesday.

Chemours, based in Wilmington, performs the research and development for sodium cyanide at the Experimental Station in Wilmington. Sodium cyanide is most often used to mine gold, silver, and other precious metals. Chemours broke ground on a US$150 million sodium cyanide plant in Mexico, the US Justice Department said in October last year.

Xu, sacked by Chemours in 2016, was a marketing professional specializing in sales of sodium cyanide. Xu was aided by an unnamed co-conspirator, who was also a longtime DuPont employee before leaving the company in 2014 to open a cyanide and mining consulting business.

According to the indictment, Xu completed several overt acts in furtherance of the conspiracy. His main objective was either to help investors build a competing sodium cyanide plant or become an import competitor in North America.

[Zhang Fei]

Free lancer rather than state-directed, at least initially. In this respect, it might be similar to the UMC case, where Taiwanese execs are said to have stolen Micron technology in the course of information sharing for a joint venture, which they then took with them to seed a newly-formed Chinese government-backed memory manufacturer.

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

Chinese guy sentenced to time served and banished from the US.

Chinese company obtains $100 MM in trade secrets.

What a deal.

[DIRTYSECRET]

There are more than a few of these folks on the US. A wall won’t stop them. Immigration in China is pretty paranoid. We should treat them the same.

[PGR88]

Indeed, this free-lance commercial espionage, for private commercial use, is FAR more common in China than the state-directed kind.

[logi_cal869]

“A former Chinese employee of a chemical company who pleaded guilty to conspiring to steal trade secrets has been barred from ever returning to the United States. “

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Ah, well...only a few million more trained agents in the pool to pick from.../s

[ought-six]

The Chinese are the biggest thieves in the history of the planet. They create pretty much nothing themselves, but steal virtually everything from others.