A scenario worthy of the greatest films of American cinema. A Harvard University professor was found guilty in Boston federal court on Tuesday of hiding from authorities its links to a Chinese program suspected by the United States of espionage economic.
Charles Lieber, 62, former head of the chemistry department at the prestigious American university, was part of a program called “1,000 talents”, which aims to attract “foreign experts to bring their knowledge and experience to China and often rewards some members for intellectual property theft, “explained the US Department of Justice in June 2020, when the professor was indicted.
This nanotechnology specialist was paid “up to $ 50,000 per month” for three years by the Wuhan Institute of Technology in China, in addition to an annual fee of $ 150,000 and $ 1.5 million for setting up a laboratory there.
After a six-day trial, he was declared guilty of lying to federal authorities, not to have declared certain income and not to have declared a bank account abroad, according to a court document. His conviction will be known later, but he risks several years in prison.
Under the Trump administration, the US Department of Justice had multiplied the inquiries on possible acts of economic espionage by China, the main economic adversary of the United States.
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