US researcher of Chinese origin arrested for stealing trade secrets, missile tech

The US Justice Department announced on Wednesday that a US researcher of Chinese origin had been detained on suspicion of stealing trade secrets, including equipment used to track the launch of nuclear missiles. According to a statement from the department, Chenguang Gong, 57, of San Jose, California, was taken into custody on Tuesday. Gong, a Chinese national who obtained US citizenship in 2011, is charged with transferring over 3,600 files from the R&D company, where he had a brief employment, to personal storage devices. The name of the company remained unidentified. Court documents state that among the files were blueprints for infrared sensors, which are used in space-based systems to track and detect ballistic and hypersonic missile launches as well as nuclear missile launches. The files also allegedly included blueprints for sensors designed to enable US military aircraft to detect heat-seeking missiles and take countermeasures. US Attorney Martin Estrada said Gong “had previously sought to provide the People’s Republic of China with information to aid its military”. “We know that foreign actors, including the PRC, are actively seeking to steal our technology, but we will remain vigilant against this threat by safeguarding the innovations of American businesses and researchers,” Estrada said. According to court documents, Gong worked at the unidentified company from January 2023 to April 2023 as a circuit design manager for infrared sensors. The Justice Department said meanwhile that two Iranians have been charged in another case involving sensitive technology. Abolfazi Bazzazi, 79, and his son Mohammad Resa Bazzazi, 43, were indicted in New York on charges of violating export laws by conspiring between 2008 and 2019 to export equipment used in the aerospace industry to Iran. “The Bazzazis devised an intricate scheme to evade US export laws in obtaining US equipment and technology to be exported to Iran and for the Government of Iran,” US Attorney Breon Peace said. “The defendants allegedly attempted to obtain commercial and military aircraft items from multiple US companies that supply the military, aerospace, and firefighting industries,” Peace said. The Bazzazis live in Iran and remain at large. (with inputs from AFP)