And yet another Chinese government spy

Military secrets this time

Fiber Laser Expert Convicted by Federal Jury of Espionage and Theft of Trade Secrets

A federal jury has convicted Ji Wang, 63, of Painted Post, N.Y., of two counts of economic espionage, one count of theft of trade secrets, one count of attempted economic espionage, and one count of attempted theft of trade secrets. 

Around July 1, 2016, Wang stole hundreds of files that contained non-public data generated during the DARPA project, including trade-secret manufacturing technology that would have enabled him to fabricate all manner of specialty optical fibers, including for fiber lasers.

…. Wang was born in China and immigrated to the United States in 1998 to work for Corning Incorporated.  Between 2002 and 2007, Wang was assigned to work on a joint research and development project funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and Corning.  The goal of the 5-year, $11.4 million project was to develop optical fibers for high-powered lasers with military and commercial applications.  DARPA and Corning aimed to increase the power of fiber lasers by more than a factor of 1000.  DARPA sought to develop this technology to create laser weapons capable of shooting down drones and missiles.

…. Ten days before Wang stole the trade secret files, he had applied for China’s Thousand Talents Plan Award. The Thousand Talents Plan Award was an initiative by the Chinese government aimed at China-born residents who immigrated to the United States to study or work in science and technology fields. The Thousand Talents Plan Award incentivized these people to return to China by promising millions of dollars of investment to award recipients who returned to China.  Two months after Wang stole the trade secret files, he was selected to receive a Thousand Talents Plan Award.

Wang was negotiating with Chinese government entities to start a specialty fiber business in China from at least 2014 through 2017. Wang sought to receive tens of millions of dollars in investment from Chinese government entities, who would have been shareholders in his new venture. Wang planned to use the stolen trade-secret files to start this business in China. 

Wang’s business plans also touted the military applications of the technology. In one such business plan, which Wang submitted to a Chinese government entity, he advertised that specialty fibers “can also be installed on military vehicles,” including “tanks.” Wang claimed that such use of the technology on military vehicles could “be key to deciding victory or defeat.”  Ultimately, law enforcement disrupted Wang’s efforts before he was able to start a new business and exploit the technology he stole.

The Chinese have been doing this for decades. Way back in the early 1990s, a Riverside resident had built an international rare earths business, buying rare earths from China and reselling them to various manufacturers around the world. He hired an assistant, a Chinese woman who, unbeknownst to him, was the daughter of a general high up in the communist power structure, to help him in his purchases from China. One morning in 1995 he came to work and discovered that the woman had disappeared, taking with her copies of my friend/client’s sourcing and customer information and wiping out the computers in the office.

Shortly thereafter, customers starting calling: they’d all received identical telexes from the woman, acting as head of a new Chinese government-sponsored entity, informing them that the shipments already in transit would be turned around at sea and delivered to new customers, and no further shipments would be made, unless the customers tore up their contracts with the U.S. company and signed new ones with the Chinese. As the manufacturers/customers were faced with either shutting down their factories or meeting the Chinese government’s demands, they apologized to my friend, and then complied. He was ruined, and within a month he’d laid off all his employees and closed the business permanently.

That’s a true story: I was there. And it was just a small taste of what was to come.