A Chinese national who lived for a time in the U.S. has been sentenced to 29 months in prison for conspiring to commit economic espionage, the U.S. Department of Justice reported last month.
Xiang Haitao, 44, pleaded guilty in January to scheming to steal proprietary property from his employer and transfer it to the People's Republic of China, the DOJ reported April 7. Xiang was employed by the Climate Corporation, a subsidiary of Monsanto, in St. Louis, when he attempted to remove the product "for the purpose of benefitting a foreign government, namely the People’s Republic of China (PRC)," court documents record.
“Xiang conspired to steal an important trade secret to gain an unfair advantage for himself and the PRC,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of DOJ’s National Security Division said in the announcement. “The victim’s companies invested significant time and resources to develop this intellectual property."
The DOJ reports Xiang worked for the Climate Corporation as an imaging scientist from 2008 to 2017. In that time, the company created a software platform for the agricultural industry used to collect, store and analyze data used to increase productivity. The software used a predictive algorithm called the Nutrient Optimizer, which was considered a proprietary trade secret and the company's intellectual property.
“The defendant took advantage of living and working in the United States to steal a valuable trade secret for the benefit of PRC entities,” Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite, Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, said in the report.
“This type of theft threatens employers large and small in every state, and it imperils our economic competitiveness as a nation," Polite said. "Individuals entrusted with valuable trade secrets should be on notice that if they abuse that trust – especially for the benefit of foreign nations – we will hold them accountable.”
Xiang left his position with the Climate Corporation in June 2017 and purchased a one-way airline ticket to China. Federal officials searched Xiang's luggage and later found copies of the Nutrient Optimizer on Xiang's electronic device, the DOJ reports. He was allowed to continue to China, where he took a position with the Chinese Academy of Science's Institute of Soil Science, according to the DOJ. Xiang returned to the U.S. in November 2019 and was arrested, the DOJ reports.
After serving the 29 months in prison, Xiang will be on supervised released for three years and has been ordered to pay a $150,000 fine.
"Economic espionage is a serious offense that can threaten U.S. companies’ competitive advantage," Olsen said in the report, "and the National Security Division is committed to holding accountable anyone who steals trade secrets to benefit a foreign government.”
