Chinese researcher charged with stealing US trade secrets

A Chinese researcher has been arrested and charged with stealing trade secrets about insecticides from US biotech company Dow and passing them on to China, court documents showed Tuesday.

Huang Kexue, 45, was a researcher at Dow AgroSciences, a subsidiary of Dow Chemical, the largest US agrochemical and biotechnology company, between January 2003 and February 2008 in the central US state of Indiana.

Huang, who was arrested by the FBI on July 13, appeared for the first time Tuesday at a district court in Indiana. An indictment was unsealed alleging 17 separate counts against him, and a not guilty plea was entered on his behalf.

Huang, a legal permanent resident in the United States, where he was known by colleagues as John, was a lead researcher on the genetic engineering of spinosyns -- products that attack the central nervous systems of insects.

Dow had been pouring money into genetic engineering since 1989 to produce a new class of organic insect control and management products, the justice department said.

Despite signing a confidentiality agreement, Huang allegedly passed on vital information to Chinese institutions and won grants for further studies based on trade secrets belonging to Dow.

Huang was the alleged co-author of an article in December 2008 entitled "Recent advances in the biochemistry of spinosyns," which was published without Dow's permission at a university in China's Hunan province.

From 2007, Huang also directed research at Hunan Normal University on trade secrets he had stolen from Dow, the charge sheet said.

Three weeks after the termination of his contract with Dow, Huang allegedly received a grant for insecticide work from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), a foreign-based institution funded by Beijing.

He went on to receive further grants from the NSFC in 2008 and 2009 for more genetic engineering work on insecticide, the indictment said.

Huang faces a maximum of 15 years in prison and a 500,000 dollar fine for each of the 12 counts of economic espionage and 10 years and a 250,000 dollar fine for each of the five counts of transporting stolen property.