A U.S. court judge has sentenced Chinese-born engineer to 15 years in prison for spying. Dongfa Greg Chung, 73, who lives in Orange California and is a naturalized citizen, was found guilty of economic espionage last year.
Chung was accused of acting as an agent for the Chinese government, receiving requests from China's aviation industry for technical material and trade secrets for military aircraft and the space shuttle.
Evidence shows Chung began receiving request letters from the Chinese aviation industry as far back as 1979. A response from Chung to one of the letters maintained that he wanted to 'make an effort to contribute to the Four Modernations of China'. Some of the materials he provided to Chinese government officials were engineering manuals for the B-1 Bomber.
When FBI and NASA agents searched Chung's home in 2006 they discovered more than 250,000 pages of documents belonging to Boeing and Rockwell as well as some other defense contractors. Among the documents there were numerous binders full of design and technical information for the space shuttle. Chung claimed he was using the information to write a book.
Chung also made multiple trips to China where he held lectures and spoke about the space shuttle program. While there, he would also meet with government officials to exchange pertinent information and discuss tactics on passing information by using his wife.
Chung is said to have also been linked to Chi Mak, another former engineer who was convicted three years ago for taking sensitive defense technology information to China. Mak was sentenced to more than 24 years in prison.
Comments