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According to the US Justice Department, a Chinese national pled guilty in federal court in Missouri on Thursday to conspiring to steal trade secrets from agricultural corporation Monsanto to benefit the Chinese government.
Xiang Haitao, who worked for Monsanto and a subsidiary from 2008 to 2017, pled guilty to one count of economic espionage conspiracy and is due to be sentenced on April 7, according to the Justice Department. He might face a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison if convicted.
According to the statement, while waiting to board a flight to China in June 2017, federal agents discovered Xiang in possession of copies of a proprietary predictive algorithm developed by Monsanto.
He was given permission to travel to China, where he worked for the Institute of Soil Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, according to the report. According to the statement, he was apprehended when he returned to the US.
“Despite Xiang’s agreements to protect Monsanto’s intellectual property and repeated training on his responsibilities, Xiang has now admitted to stealing a trade secret from Monsanto, transferring it to a memory card, and attempting to take it to the People’s Republic of China for the benefit of the Chinese government,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen said.
“Mr Xiang exploited his insider status at a prominent international corporation to steal valuable trade secrets for use in his home country of China,” said US Attorney Sayler Fleming for the Eastern District of Missouri.
When Xiang was accused by US authorities in 2019, the Chinese foreign ministry claimed that Washington was attempting to use the case to support its claims that China steals technology from American companies.
“We absolutely oppose the US side’s attempts to utilise the issue, which we consider as a routine, isolated event, to drum up charges of China’s coordinated and systematic attempts to steal intellectual property from the United States,” said spokesperson Geng Shuang.
