Washington/Beijing, Oct 11: For the first time, a Chinese intelligence official has been extradited to the US to face espionage charges for conspiring and attempting to steal trade secrets from multiple American aviation and aerospace companies, the Department of Justice has said.
Yanjun Xu, aka Qu Hui, aka Zhang Hui, a Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS) operative, was extradited to the US on Tuesday, following which the charges were unsealed Wednesday.
Arrested in Belgium April 1, Xu was indicted on four counts of conspiring and attempting to commit espionage and theft of trade secrets. He was extradited to the US Tuesday after losing his appeal.
“This unprecedented extradition of a Chinese intelligence officer exposes the Chinese government’s direct oversight of economic espionage against the United States,” said Bill Priestap, assistant director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division, in a statement.
The arrest of the Chinese official is the latest in relation to the theft of technology. Xu is a Deputy Division Director with the MSS’s Jiangsu State Security Department, Sixth Bureau. The MSS is the intelligence and security agency for China and is responsible for counter-intelligence, foreign intelligence and political security.
The MSS has broad powers in China to conduct espionage both domestically and abroad.
According to the indictment, beginning December 2013 and till his arrest, Xu targeted certain companies recognised as leaders in the aviation field both in and outside the United States. This included GE Aviation.
He identified experts who worked for these companies and recruited them to travel to China, often initially under the guise of asking them to deliver a university presentation. Xu and others paid the experts’ travel costs and provided stipends.
He faces a maximum statutory penalty of 15 years, the justice department said.
PTI