Engineer steals US nuclear secrets worth millions from California employer, feds say

An engineer faces a charge of stealing nuclear trade secrets from his employer in California, federal authorities report.

The 57-year-old San Jose man copied more than 3,600 files containing trade secrets relating to nuclear launch detection and tracking systems, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California said in a Feb. 7 news release.

The stolen files “include blueprints for sophisticated infrared sensors designed for use in space-based systems to detect nuclear missile launches and track ballistic and hypersonic missiles,” prosecutors said.

He also stole “blueprints for sensors designed to enable U.S. military aircraft to detect incoming heat-seeking missiles and take countermeasures, including by jamming the missiles’ infrared tracking ability,” prosecutors said.

The Los Angeles-area company and U.S. government spent tens of millions of dollars annually for more than seven years to develop the technologies, federal officials said.

He was hired by the company to work in one of its laboratories in January 2023, began copying files in March and was fired in April, officials said.

The man, who was born in China but became a U.S. citizen in 2011, has in the past “sought to provide the People’s Republic of China with information to aid its military,” U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said in the release.

He is charged with theft of trade secrets, prosecutors said.

Attorney information for the man was not made available.

If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in federal prison.

This story was originally published February 7, 2024 at 3:30 PM with the headline "Engineer steals US nuclear secrets worth millions from California employer, feds say."