The United States Department of Justice has charged a former Apple engineer who is accused of stealing the company’s technology on autonomous systems, including self-driving cars, before fleeing to China.
Weibao Wang, 35, of Mountain View, California, was first hired by the U.S.-based tech giant in 2016, according to an April indictment that was unsealed by the DOJ on Tuesday.
Wang is one of several people accused of stealing trade secrets and trying to steal technology that would benefit foreign nations.
The justice department says that in 2017, Wang, who was still working at Apple, took a U.S.-based job with a Chinese company developing self-driving cars. Instead of resigning from his position with Apple, the DOJ says that he continued to work both jobs for about four months, the indictment says.
Eventually, Wang resigned from his position with Apple. However, after his last day with the company, it was discovered that he had been accessing large amounts of proprietary data before he left, according to the DOJ.
The incident was reported by the company, and in June 2018, federal agents searched Wang’s home, where they found “large quantities” of data that he had taken from Apple, the DOJ said.
However, before he could be taken into custody, Wang fled the country on a plane to China, the department said.
Matt Olsen, the head of the justice department’s national security division, spoke with reporters about the recent charges and his division’s efforts to crack down on such offenses.
“We stand vigilant in enforcing US laws to stop the flow of sensitive technologies to our foreign adversaries,” Olsen said. “We are committed to doing all we can to prevent these advanced tools from falling into the hands of foreign adversaries.”
The DOJ shared that Wang remains at large in China at this time, though others who were recently charged have been taken into custody.
Apple has declined to comment on the case.
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