A Chinese citizen has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Boston for allegedly stealing trade secrets from his employer, a global investment management company based in Massachusetts, in 2021.
According to a press release issued by the U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday, Xiao Zhang, a 33-year-old man from Shanghai, China, has been charged with one count of stealing trade secrets. Zhang is currently evading authorities outside of the United States.
The indictment alleges that in 2021, Zhang used a virtual private network (VPN) to access his employer’s network from China, circumventing the company’s controls.
Subsequently, Zhang copied his employer’s code, projects, and research, and transmitted these copies using a file-sharing application within China, once again bypassing the employer’s controls.
It is reported that Zhang then attempted to establish his own investment company in China using the stolen data.
The charge of stealing trade secrets carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, 3 years of supervised release, and a maximum fine of $250,000. The sentence will be determined by a federal district court judge in accordance with the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and sentencing statutes for criminal cases.
The announcement of this indictment was made jointly by Acting U.S. Attorney Joshua S. Levy and Special Agent Jodi Cohen of the FBI’s Boston Field Office. Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy H. Kistner of the National Security Unit is handling the prosecution of this case.