A U.S. federal court sentenced a 42-year-old Chinese spy to 20 years in prison on Wednesday for trade secret theft.
What Happened: The U.S. Justice Department said a court in Cincinnati sentenced Xu Yanjun, a Chinese national who was convicted last year of plotting to steal trade secrets from several American aviation and aerospace companies.
Yanjun is the first Chinese spy to be extradited to the U.S. for trial and was convicted in Nov. 2021 on counts of conspiring and attempting to commit economic espionage and trade secret theft. His case was the first in history where Washington brought an alleged Beijing spy to court after extraditing him from Belgium in 2018.
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The spy reportedly targeted employees at American aviation companies, including G.E. Aviation, to obtain proprietary information at the behest of the Chinese government, the court document said.
"This case is just the latest example of the Chinese government's continued attacks on American economic security – and, by extension, our national security," FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement.
"This brazen action shows that the Chinese government will stop at nothing to put our companies out of business to the detriment of U.S. workers."
The Chinese Foreign Ministry had previously alleged that the U.S. accusations in the case were "completely fabricated."
Photo: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
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