Canadian arrested for stealing US firm’s technology to set up rival company in China
A Canadian national living in China has been arrested for stealing proprietary technology from a US electric car maker, after he arrived in the United States to meet businesspeople who turned out to be undercover law enforcement agents.
The Department of Justice (‘DOJ’) said that Klaus Pflugbeil, 58, was arrested in New York’s Nassau County ‘for conspiring with co-defendant Yilong Shao, 47, of Ningbo, China, to send to undercover law enforcement officers trade secrets that belonged to a leading U.S.-based electric vehicle company.’
It said they wanted the technology to set up a rival business in China.
‘As alleged, the defendants set up a company in China, blatantly stole trade secrets from an American company that are important to manufacturing electric vehicles, and which cost many millions of dollars in research and development, and sold products developed with the stolen trade secrets,’ said US Attorney Breon Peace for the Eastern District of New York.
‘This blatant theft of advanced trade secrets relating to battery components and assembly blunts America’s technological edge and, the Justice Department will hold accountable those who would so try cheat our country of its economic potential and threaten our national security,’ said Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen of the DOJ’s National Security Division.
