CANADIAN SCIENTIST ENTERS GUILTY PLEA TO U.S. ECONOMIC SPYING CHARGE

A Canadian scientist born in China named Kexue Huang, who has worked for two giants in the American agricultural industry, last month pleaded guilty to economic espionage and theft charges in U.S. District Court in Indianapolis. He admitted to passing on American industry secrets concerning a pesticide and a newly developed food product to the Chinese and the Germans. Mr. Huang’s indictment in June of last year was for alleged violation of the Economic Espionage Act, which had been instituted fifteen years ago in response to spying on private American companies. There have been only seven other such cases in the entire country over the life of the aforementioned legislation. The Justice Department disclosed in a press release that Huang turned over classified information relative to an organic pesticide he had a hand in formulating during his employment at Dow AgroSciences in Indiana, to contacts in China and Germany during the period of 2007 through 2010. In addition, Huang carried out unsanctioned research utilizing the appropriated materials, for the purpose of aiding foreign universities with a Chinese connection. In March 2008, he moved on to Cargill Inc., headquartered in Minnetonka, Minnesota, where he made off with a crucial ingredient of a new food product and delivered it to a student at the Chinese Hunan Normal University, as purported in the indictment. The Justice Department placed a value of 305 million dollars on the losses attributed to Huang. He could receive a potential maximum 25 year prison term.