Chinese Researcher Arrested in Illegal Tech Theft Probe

A researcher at the College of California with ties to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has been arrested and billed right after allegedly destroying proof.

Chinese national Guan Lei, 29, of Alhambra, faces a most sentence of 20 yrs in a federal jail after staying billed with intentionally destroying a challenging travel in get to impede an FBI investigation.

Guan, who was in the US on a J-1 non-immigrant visa, was suspected of transferring computer software or technological info to China’s National University of Protection Technology (NUDT), and was also getting investigated for apparently lying about his armed service ties on a 2018 visa application, and in interviews with officers.

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He apparently afterwards admitted to receiving military instruction and putting on armed service uniforms whilst at NUDT. That same university was positioned on a US entity record just after being “suspected of procuring US-origin merchandise to develop supercomputers with nuclear explosive purposes,” in accordance to an affidavit.

It is also claimed that just one of Guan’s school advisors at NUDT was also a lieutenant common in the PLA who designed computers employed by the Chinese military and Air Drive, as very well as army temperature forecasts and nuclear technology.

Guan is stated to have been noticed throwing a tricky drive into a dumpster outside his apartment on July 25, soon before attempting to board a flight to China.

According to the affidavit, the tough drive “was irreparably weakened and that all previous details related with the challenging drive seems to have been taken off intentionally and by force.”

Guan refused a request by FBI officers to take a look at his notebook and was subsequently denied authorization to board the plane.

The news arrives amidst a US crackdown on Chinese college students fuelled by suspicions that Beijing forces legit learners to spy for their state and sneaks military services operatives into the US as students to do the identical.

In January, an indictment was issued for one more previous NUDT ‘student’, Yanqing Ye, who was subsequently uncovered to be a PLA lieutenant, and Zaosong Zheng, who tried to smuggle biological study out of the US. Both of those had been college students in Boston.