The spy was trying to steal technologies from aerospace companies, including the French company Safran. He was convicted of economic espionage and the theft of trade secrets
A Chinese intelligence agent was convicted on Friday of economic espionage in a federal court in the United States, for attempting to steal technologies from American and French aerospace companies, the United States Department of Justice said.
Xu Yanjun, an official in Jiangsu Province of the Foreign Intelligence Bureau, under the Ministry of State Security, had his guilt established by a court in Cincinnati on the charges of complicity and attempted espionage economic, as well as three counts of theft of trade secrets.
Up to 45 years in prison
Each of the two counts of economic espionage can carry a sentence of up to 15 years in prison, while each of the other three counts is punishable by 10 years in prison.
The American authorities accuse Xu Yanjun of having, from 2013, sought to obtain information on behalf of China on several aeronautical companies, including the American General Electric Aviation and the French Safran, which collaborated with GE on the development. of an engine.
This agent of the Chinese State Security Ministry would have identified experts employed by these companies and would have attracted them to China under the pretext of university conferences, by paying them the trip.
Arrested in 2018 in Belgium, he had probably been lured there as part of a counter-espionage operation, thinking of meeting an employee of GE. He was extradited the same year to the United States.
The US Department of Justice at the time also named 10 other defendants, including two junior agents of Xu, as well as six hackers working with them and two men working for Safran. None of the other 10 accused were arrested.
The ministry also said that a Beijing-controlled aerospace company was trying to develop an engine similar to GE’s, for use in an aircraft designed by China.
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