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Old 07-23-2021, 04:36 AM
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Exclamation Judge sentences electrical engineer that stole military chip tech for China

Judge sentences electrical engineer that stole military chip tech for China
By: Matthew Renda - Courthouse News Service - 07-22-21
Re: https://www.courthousenews.com/judge...ech-for-china/

An electrical engineer and former adjunct professor at UCLA was sentenced to five years after being found guilty of stealing military chip technology from the U.S. and giving it to Chinese companies.

(CN) — A federal judge sentenced a Chinese electrical engineer to five years in prison for illegally exporting military technology from the United States to China.

U.S. District Court Judge John Kronstadt sentenced Yi-Chi Shih, 66, of Hollywood Hills, to 63 months in prison because he took semiconductor chips with military applications to China without proper authorization and misled authorities about the nature and size of his assets in China.

A jury found Shih guilty after a seven-week trial that concluded in July 2019 amid rising geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and China, with both countries accusing the other of economic espionage and intellectual property theft.

“The Department’s China Initiative is focused on preventing and prosecuting thefts of American technology and intellectual property for the benefit of China,” said Assistant Attorney General John Demers after Shih was found guilty in 2019. “The defendant has been found guilty of conspiring to export sensitive semiconductor chips with military applications to China."

Shih defrauded a U.S. company that manufactured high-powered broadband semiconductor chips knowns as monolithic microwave integrated circuits by taking its proprietary business information and sharing it with companies in headquartered in China.

In order to do so, he collaborated with Kiet Ahn Mai, 65, of Pasadena, California, who provided him access to the company’s computer system via its web portal after posing as a domestic customer.

Once inside, Shih obtained the custom designs used with military applications exclusively in the U.S. and transferred them back to China, according to the evidence presented at trial.

The semiconductor chips in question have several military and commercial applications and customers include the Air Force, Navy and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

The chips “are used in missiles, missile guidance systems, fighter jets, electronic warfare, electronic warfare countermeasures and radar applications,” according to court documents.

The chips at the heart of the case were shipped to Chengdu GaStone Technology Company, a Chinese company that was building a semiconductor manufacturing facility in southwestern China. Shih was the president of the company, which made its way onto a list of Chinese companies monitored by the U.S. Commerce Department.

The department placed it on the Entity List “due to its involvement in activities contrary to the national security and foreign policy interest of the United States — specifically, that it had been involved in the illicit procurement of commodities and items for unauthorized military end use in China.”

Shih used an LLC based in the Hollywood Hills called Pullman Lane Productions to disguise his China-based operations called. Other private entities based in Beijing funnelled money through the U.S.-based company to fund the semiconductor manufacturing scheme, according to court documents.

Shih and Mai were indicted in this case in January 2018. Mai pleaded guilty in December 2018 to one felony count of smuggling.

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O Almighty Lord God, who neither slumberest nor sleepest; Protect and assist, we beseech thee, all those who at home or abroad, by land, by sea, or in the air, are serving this country, that they, being armed with thy defence, may be preserved evermore in all perils; and being filled with wisdom and girded with strength, may do their duty to thy honour and glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

"IN GOD WE TRUST"
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