San Jose engineer pleads guilty to stealing trade secret technology for Chinese government

A San Jose man arrested for stealing thousands of files containing sensitive missile technologies and trade secrets pled guilty Monday, the U.S. Department of Justice announced in a news release.

San Jose resident Chenguang Gong, 59, a dual citizen of the U.S. and China, pleaded guilty to one count of theft of trade secrets. Gong was arrested in February 2024 and remains free on a $1.75 million bond. He faces a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.

The government said Gong transferred more than 3,600 files from the Los Angeles-area research and development company he worked at briefly to personal storage devices. Those files included blueprints for sensors designed to track and detect nuclear, ballistic and hypersonic missiles, as well as blueprints for sensors designed to enable U.S. military aircraft to detect and counteract incoming missiles by jamming the missiles’ infrared tracking ability. The government said some of those files were later found on storage devices seized from Gong’s temporary Thousand Oaks residence.

The Department of Justice said the unspecified Los Angeles firm — referred to as the “victim company” — hired Gong in January 2023 to design, develop and verify infrared sensors. From March 2023 to his termination on April 26, 2023, the department said, Gong transferred thousands of files from his work laptop to three personal storage devices, including more than 1,800 files after he had accepted a job at one of the company’s main competitors.

The government said Gong also transferred files containing some of the company’s most important trade secrets worth hundreds of millions of dollars — the development of “next generation” sensors capable of sensing hard-to-detect targets.

The Department of Justice said law enforcement also discovered that Gong had submitted numerous applicants to “Talent Programs” administered by the People’s Republic of China from 2014 to 2022. The U.S. government alleges that China uses the talent programs to identify individuals who have specialized skills and abilities in advanced sciences and technologies to benefit China and its military.

According to the Department of Justice, Gong sent Talent Program applications in 2014 and 2020 containing business proposals of military application products produced by his employers and traveled to China several times to seek Talent Program funding to develop the products. The department said in a 2019 email translated from Chinese, Gong said he “‘took a risk’ by traveling to China to participate in the Talent Programs ‘because (he) worked for … an American military industry company’ and thought he could ‘do something’ to contribute to China’s ‘high-end military integrated circuits.’ ”

The Department of Justice estimated the intended economic loss from Gong’s criminal conduct exceeded $3.5 million.

Gong’s sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 29.

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