Scientist admits to Monsanto trade secret espionage
A former Monsanto employee has pled guilty to conspiring to steal trade secrets from the biotech company in order to share the information with the Chinese government.
The former employee admitted to attempting corporate espionage in a plea agreement filed with the US District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri on Thursday, January 6th.
The employee, Xiang Haitao, stole information related to a “nutrient optimiser” belonging to Monsanto subsidiary The Climate Corporation, and attempted to board a flight to China to share the secret with the Chinese government.
Assistant attorney general Matthew Olsen of the Department of Justice’s national security Division said: “Despite Xiang’s agreements to protect Monsanto’s intellectual property and repeated training on his obligations to do so, Xiang has now admitted that he stole a trade secret from Monsanto… With his guilty plea, Xiang is now being held accountable for this unlawful conduct.”
Xiang had been a senior research fellow at Monsanto since February 2008 and worked on the research and application of large agricultural data, smart information systems, and crop monitoring.
The day after leaving his employment at Monsanto and The Climate Corporation in June 2017, Xiang attempted to board the one-way flight to China with a memory card containing trade secrets related to the “nutrient optimiser”.
He was met on the jetway of Chicago O’Hare international airport by Department of Homeland Security-Customs and Border Patrol officers, who searched and seized several electronic devices.
Upon further investigation from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, agents located a micro SD card containing an 86-page document divulging Monsanto trade secrets.
A criminal complaint was filed with the Missouri court by a special agent of the FBI in November 2019, accusing Xiang of conspiracy to commit theft of trade secrets.
On Thursday, January 6, Xiang plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit economic espionage and is scheduled to be sentenced on April 7 2022.
Xiang will face a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison, a potential fine of $5 million, and a term of supervised release of up to three years.
Assistant director of the FBI’s counterintelligence division Alan Kohler said: “The FBI will continue investigating the theft of technology from American companies because economic security is national security.”
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