California man sentenced to federal prison for stealing missile tracking secrets
By Tim Fang
A California man has been sentenced to nearly four years in federal prison after being convicted of stealing missile tracking technology trade secrets from his employer, prosecutors said.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California, 59-year-old Chenguang Gong of San Jose was sentenced to 46 months at a hearing on Monday.
Gong, who has both U.S. and Chinese citizenship, pled guilty on July 21 to one count of stealing trade secrets. He had faced a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison.
Prosecutors said Gong transferred more than 3,600 files from a Los Angeles-area based research and development company to his personal devices, during his brief tenure with the unidentified firm in 2023.
Many of the files had been labeled “PROPRIETORY”, “FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY”, “PROPRIETORY INFORMATION” and “EXPORT CONTROLLED”. Prosecutors said 1,800 files were transferred after Gong accepted a job at one of the company’s main competitors.
The files included blueprints for sophisticated infrared sensors designed for use in space-based systems to detect nuclear missile launches and to track ballistic and hypersonic missiles, prosecutors said. Gong also stole blueprints for sensors enabling U.S. military aircraft to detect incoming heat-seeking missiles and to take countermeasures, including jamming the missiles’ infrared tracking.
Prosecutors said the information was the company’s “most important” trade secrets, worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, law enforcement also learned that Gong submitted numerous applications to “Talent Programs” administered by the Chinese government while he was employed at several major technology companies in the U.S. between 2014 and 2022.
In a sentencing memorandum, prosecutors argued that Gong’s conduct was “particularly egregious”, saying that the theft of trade secrets was not an isolated incident.
“[I]t represents the culmination of a long pattern of stealing proprietary technology from U.S. companies to benefit the [People Republic of China’s] military,” prosecutors said.
In addition to the prison term, Dong has also been ordered to pay $77,408 in restitution and a $100,000 fine.
