LOS ANGELES – A judge on Monday sentenced a 59-year-old San Jose man to nearly four years in federal prison for stealing thousands of files containing sensitive missile technologies and trade secrets, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Chenguang Gong, a dual citizen of the United States and China, pleaded guilty on July 21 to one count of theft of trade secrets.
Gong transferred more than 3,600 files from the Los Angeles-area research-and-development company he worked at briefly to personal storage devices, prosecutors said.
The stolen files included blueprints for sensors designed to track and detect nuclear, ballistic and hypersonic missiles, as well as blueprints for sensors designed to enable U.S. fighter jets to detect and evade heat-seeking missiles, prosecutors said.
The Los Angeles-area company – identified only as the “victim company” – hired Gong in January 2023 to design, develop and verify infrared sensors. From March 2023 to his termination on April 26, 2023, he transferred thousands of files from his work laptop to three personal storage devices, including more than 1,800 files after he had accepted a job at one of the company’s main competitors, prosecutors said.
Some of the information was worth hundreds of millions of dollars, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said Gong also applied to “talent programs” administered by the People’s Republic of China between 2014 and 2018. The country allegedly uses the programs to identify individuals who have specialized skills and abilities in advanced sciences and technologies to benefit China and its military, according to prosecutors.
Gong traveled to China to seek talent program funding to develop analog-to-digital converters, prosecutors said.
In a 2019 email, translated from Chinese, Gong said he “took a risk” by traveling to China to participate in the talent programs “because (he) worked for … an American military industry company” and thought he could “do something” to contribute to China’s “high-end military integrated circuits,” according to prosecutors.
In addition to the prison term, the judge ordered Gong to pay a $100,000 fine and about $77,400 in restitution.
Staff writer Molly Gibbs contributed to this report.
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