|
Space shuttle secrets stolen
11/02/2008 20:50 - (SA)
Washington - A former Boeing engineer was arrested on Monday on charges of stealing trade secrets for China related to several aerospace programmes, including the Space Shuttle, the US Justice Department said.
It also announced a separate case in which a US Defence Department official and two others were arrested on Monday on espionage charges involving the passing of classified US government documents to China.
Department officials said Dongfan "Greg" Chung, 72, of Orange, California, who was employed by Rockwell International from 1973 until its defence and space unit was acquired by Boeing in 1996, was arrested without incident at his residence.
He was accused of espionage involving economic secrets, conspiracy and other charges.
Chung, a China native who is a naturalised US citizen, held a secret security clearance when he worked at Rockwell and Boeing on the Space Shuttle programme, the officials said.
He retired from the company in 2002, but the next year he returned to Boeing as a contractor, a position he held until September 2006.
According to the charges against him, Chung took and concealed Boeing trade secrets relating to the Space Shuttle, the C-17 military transport aircraft and the Delta IV rocket.
A Boeing spokesperson, Dan Beck, said his company has been working with investigators.
"We do not comment on ongoing government criminal investigations and will not comment on the subject matter of the case," Beck said. "Boeing is not a target of the investigation and has been cooperating with the government."
The other case involved Gregg William Bergersen, a Defence Department official, and Tai Shen Kuo and Yu Xin Kang, both of New Orleans.
Working under the direction of an individual identified in court documents only as "PRC Official A," Kuo cultivated friendships with Bergersen and others in the US government and obtained from them sensitive classified information for China.
The criminal conduct spanned a two-year period from January 2006 to February 2008, the documents said.
Kuo, a naturalised US citizen and New Orleans businessman, gathered the information on behalf of China. Bergersen is a weapons systems policy analyst at the Arlington, Vancouver-based Defence Security Cooperation Agency, which is part of the Defence Department.
- Reuters
|
News
