An electronic engineer from Los Angeles, California was condemned to over five years in jail; this happened for plotting to steal rocket technology and transfer it to a Chinese corporation.
66-year-old Hollywood Hills resident Yi-Chi Shih was condemned to 63 months in state prison by U.S. District Judge John A. Kronstadt. He has also been fined $300,000 and forced to pay $362,698 in reparation to the Tax Authorities (IRS).
The plot was to send advanced missile technology to the Chinese government
Shih was apprehended in January 2019 when he was discovered to be a part of an unlawful arrangement. This arrangement entailed acquiring integrated circuits components (MMICs) with an unknown American company and trying to sneak them to Chengdu GaStone Technology (CGTC).
CGTC is a company based in China that was positioned on the Commerce Agency’s list of entities in 2014. Essentially, it’s a state-owned company. On one charge of conspiring to breach the Global Emergencies Financial Powers Act, Shih was found guilty.
Electrical Engineer Gets Five Years in Prison For Selling Missile Technology to China https://t.co/aXueAYHdVl via EpochTimesChina pic.twitter.com/82TNFezRbM
— Israel News Links (@IsraelNewsLinks) July 23, 2021
Shih has also been found guilty of multiple charges of mail fraud and two counts of wire fraud; this came in addition to one charge of collusion to gain information by gaining unauthorized access to a restricted computer system, one charge of lying to an FBI agent, more charges of filing a false tax form, and criminal offenses of lying to the IRS regarding his foreign investments.
Shih allegedly deceived a U.S. business that made internet, high-powered electronic components with a variety of civil and military applications, according to court documents.
Former UCLA professor Yi-Chi Shih has been found guilty on 18 federal charges for funneling American military technology to China. https://t.co/4sC2GFFBrY
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) July 12, 2019
MMICs, or microwave integrated circuits, are utilized in rockets, missile ballistic missiles, fighter planes, cyber warfare, weapons systems defense measures, and radars. Shih’s shipments to China were destined for AVIC 607, a government company.
Shih was the chairman of CGTC, which was establishing an MMIC production facility in the city, as per court filings. The corporation was put on the list as a result of its participation in acts that were detrimental to the United States’ foreign and military policy interests. This notably includes the illicit purchase of commodities and materials for unapproved military end-use throughout China.
The lawsuit is one of the numerous federal charges aimed at stealing intellectual property from the United States for the advantage of China
Professor faces 219-year prison sentence for sending missile chip tech to China
Yi-Chi Shih, an electrical engineer and adjunct professor at UCLA https://t.co/ripfI1UxCN pic.twitter.com/v7fPRFtjbD
— Rich Tehrani (@rtehrani) July 7, 2019
You Xiaorong, a retired Coca-Cola worker, was found guilty in April of stealing intellectual property about the covering of drink bottles from Western corporations. They then intended to apply the method to the production of coating for global companies.
Zhang Hao, a Chinese scholar, was convicted of intelligence gathering and stealing network technology from American corporations for the Chinese state in June 2020. The tech in discussion filters out harmful signals in wireless devices like cellphones and tablets and has commercial and defense uses.
In May, US Senate and House members revived the Defending America from Espionage Act, which would refuse visas to immigrants who had misappropriated or conducted spying in the United States, particularly those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
