A former Apple engineer has pleaded guilty to stealing Apple trade secrets for the benefit of a Chinese company. After six years of investigation, he will finally have to spend three months behind bars.
It was in 2018 that the FBI first accused Xiaolang Zhang, a former Apple engineer who notably worked on autonomous vehicle technologies, of having revealed his company’s secrets to a Chinese start-up. After initially denying it, the man eventually pleaded guilty, but is expected to spend only a few months in prison, a sentence that appears relatively light.
Stealing secrets for Chinese competition
It was in 2018 that the FBI seriously looked into the Xiaolang Zhang case, presumably following a tip from Apple’s security teams. The man has indeed worked on many different projects during his time at Apple, including several types of detectors exclusively dedicated to autonomous vehicle technologies. He mainly worked for the “Titan project”, which aims for nothing less than to compete with Tesla or Google on automatic driving technologies.
But in 2018, he first took paternity leave, during which he went to China, before informing Apple that he would not return to the company once his leave expired. In fact, he had already signed a contract with Xiaopeng Motors, a Chinese start-up specializing in, you guessed it, autonomous vehicles. Apple explains that it spotted his suspicious and evasive behavior at the time, and quickly decided to investigate him.
He was finally arrested at the San Jose airport while trying to fly to China.
Three months in prison for industrial espionage, Zhang is doing extremely well
During the initial complaint in 2018, Zhang initially pleaded not guilty, but ultimately resigned himself to pleading guilty in 2022 as the trial began. It must be said that the prosecution had solid arguments: precisely thanks to Apple’s internal investigation, the court was able to find out that the accused had, a few days before his departure, searched databases to retrieve PDF documents confidential. The man was also filmed stealing equipment from the scene.
For such acts, Zhang risked no less than 10 years in prison, as well as a $250,000 fine. The prosecution had requested a year in prison, but Zhang ultimately spent only 120 days behind bars, to which must be added three years of conditional release and a fine of nearly $150,000. The man is therefore doing rather well compared to other similar cases… but he will have to look for work elsewhere.
Source : 9to5mac, MacGeneration
1