A scientist who works at a Marlborough biofuel company has been indicted in Indiana on 12 counts of theft and attempted theft of trade secrets to benefit a foreign government or instrumentality and five counts of interstate and foreign transportation of stolen property, according to documents unsealed yesterday in US District Court in Boston. Kexue Huang, 45, of Westborough has been jailed without bail since FBI agents arrested him Tuesday. It is unclear what secrets Huang, who previously lived in Indiana, is accused of stealing and for whom, because the indictment against him remains under seal.
One can take a pretty good guess based on the name.
Huang has been employed by Qteros Inc. in Marlborough for about a year, according to a company spokeswoman. She said the Indiana indictment is not related to his work at Qteros.
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Turned into a best-seller (front-page lead):
"US says scientist gave data to China; Westborough man faces 12 charges; Trade secrets of Dow at issue" by Jonathan Saltzman, Globe Staff | July 20, 2010
WORCESTER — A scientist from Westborough passed on trade secrets worth more than $100 million to China about a commercial insecticide developed by
Anybody remember the Wen Ho Lee case?
The charges do not involve classified or national defense information....
That's Israel's area of interest.
But Huang’s lawyer, James P. Duggan of Boston, said his client, a Canadian citizen and legal US resident, was merely a coauthor of an article in a scholarly journal published by the university in December 2008. The article was called “Recent Advances in the Biochemistry of Spinosyns’’ and dealt with insect control agents used in agriculture.
You mean chemical weapons, right?
“If he was really intending to steal trade secrets which allegedly have these commercial values of hundreds of millions of dollars, he would hardly be publishing what he knew in a scholarly journal which is open to and available to the public,’’ Duggan said after the hearing. “That is not the way a proper crime is committed.’’
Dow AgroSciences, a Dow business unit based in Indianapolis, said in a statement that it was “aware of an FBI investigation into a potential violation of our company’s intellectual property rights by a former employee.’’
“We are cooperating fully with the authorities,’’ the statement said. “Because of the nature of the investigation, we are unable to comment further.’’
Huang lives in Westborough and works as a scientific researcher for Qteros Inc., a Marlborough biofuels company, and hopes to return to work.
“He has no reason to believe that his job is in jeopardy,’’ said Duggan. He later said his client has a doctorate in pharmacology from a university in Japan.
Sue Hager, spokeswoman for Qteros, said Huang has worked at the biofuels company for about a year....
Huang, a tall, thin bespectacled man who wore a tan jail jumpsuit, black sneakers, and leg shackles, is one of only six or seven individuals ever charged with economic espionage to benefit a foreign government or instrumentality, said Assistant US Attorney Scott L. Garland.
The Justice Department in Washington had to approve the filing of those charges, unlike most charges brought by federal prosecutors in Massachusetts, Garland said.
Joseph F. Savage Jr., a Boston defense lawyer and former federal prosecutor who has written about the Economic Espionage Act, said Congress passed the law in 1996 after the FBI said it was investigating more than 150 cases of commercial espionage benefiting foreign governments.
And only a handful ever charged, huh?
Most of them must be for Israel then.
Since the law went into effect, Savage said, roughly 50 cases have been prosecuted, and the vast majority of them concerned corporate espionage among competitors in the United States.
Most of the cases involve “one company stealing stuff from another company,’’ he said. “There’s millions of employees, and most of them don’t have any connection to foreign governments.’’
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Duggan said Huang has no criminal record and is a well-educated man with a wife, who works as a data manager for Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and two children. His wife sat in the gallery of the otherwise empty courtroom.
A spy with access to all that information?
“I do think it’s unusual, judge, that you could allege a larceny scheme’’ based on publication in a journal, Duggan added.
Garland countered that the allegations against Huang extended beyond the article in the journal but declined to elaborate.
Duggan said later that prosecutors contend Huang’s alleged theft of trade secrets could enable manufacturers in China to make the same variety of insecticide Dow was developing....
Huang and his wife are willing to surrender their passports and those of their children and to use the $275,000 to $300,000 of equity in their home to secure his bail, Duggan said.
“It’s hard to picture the whole family moving, without passports, to Canada or any other foreign country,’’ Duggan said. “It’s unlikely they would be on the lam for more than 10 minutes.’’
But you never know, right?
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Slow Saturday Special: No Spy Swap With Cuba
The Boston Sunday Globe Writes a Russian Spy Story
I don't like MSM spy novels, readers.
When they get around to the Israeli spy story then maybe I'll pick 'em back up.
