US Attorney General accuses two Chinese intelligence officers of attempting to steal data in the Huawei case

United States Attorney General Merrick Garland informed to bring criminal charges against two Chinese citizens in an attempt to obstruct the prosecution of Huawei. According to the indictment, Chinese intelligence officers He Guochun and Wang Zheng tried to bribe a US law enforcement official to obtain details of the Huawei trial, witness statements, a description of the prosecution’s strategy, and other confidential documents through him.

Chinese tech giant Huawei was indicted by the US Department of Justice in early 2019. Two criminal cases were initiated against the company: one — to Huawei Technologies and its American division, second — to Huawei Technologies and its CFO Meng Wanzhou. The accusations against the company include theft of trade secrets of other companies, banking and electronic fraud, violation of the Iran sanctions regime, money laundering and obstruction of justice.

In the same year, according to the indictment, two Chinese intelligence officers, He Guochun and Wang Zheng, contacted a certain US law enforcement officer who allegedly had access to the Eastern District of New York prosecutor’s office, where the Huawei case is being handled. In exchange for services in obtaining classified information in the case, the American was paid an advance of $41,000 in bitcoins, not knowing that he was a double agent. The FBI provided the American with several plausible-looking “Huawei documents” that he passed on to the Chinese over the course of two years. For this, in September of this year, he received another $20,000 in bitcoins from customers. The court issued an arrest warrant for He Guochun and Wang Zheng, however, according to the US Department of Justice, they are now in China and cannot be detained.

Alena Miklashevskaya