Posted on April 15, 2011

Ex-Ford Engineer Sentenced for Trade Secrets Theft

Ben Klayman, Reuters, April 13, 2011

A Chinese engineer who stole Ford Motor Co trade secrets was sentenced to almost six years in prison, said the U.S. Attorney’s office in Detroit.

Xiang Dong Yu, also known as Mike Yu, of Beijing, was sentenced to 70 months in federal prison and ordered to pay a fine of $12,500 after pleading guilty to two counts of theft of trade secrets, the U.S. Attorney’s office said in a statement on Tuesday.

{snip}

Yu, 49, was arrested in October 2009 when he arrived at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport from China on charges that he stole thousands of secret documents detailing Ford designs worth millions of dollars.

{snip}

In December 2006, he accepted a job at the China branch of a U.S. company, the U.S. Attorney’s office said. On the eve of his departure from Ford and before he told the automaker of his new job, Yu copied some 4,000 Ford documents onto an external hard drive, including sensitive Ford design documents about engine-transmission and electric power supply systems, the U.S. Attorney’s office said.

{snip}