Huawei Executive Accused of Orchestrating US Trade Theft Scheme

Eric Xu, a deputy chairman of Huawei, allegedly was directly involved in a conspiracy to steal trade secrets relating to solid-state drive (SSD) technology from a U.S. startup, according to newly released court documents from an ongoing lawsuit. It’s the latest development in tit-for-tat lawsuits involving San Jose, California-based startup CNEX Labs Inc. and the Chinese telecom giant, with each accusing the other of theft of trade secrets. CNEX has received investment funding from Microsoft and Dell Technologies.

In the latest court documents, CNEX alleges that a professor from China’s Xiamen University pretended to be a customer in order to acquire its technology and transfer the know-how to Huawei chip-development subsidiary HiSilicon. CNEX, citing information from Huawei staff, also claims that Xu was briefed about the whole scheme involving the university professor, and directed Huawei engineers to analyze CNEX’s data storage technology. In response to the allegations about Xu’s involvement, CNBC reported that a Huawei spokesman told reporters on May 23 that CNEX’s claims are “misleading and unsubstantiated.” The case will go to trial at a federal court in the Eastern District of Texas on June 3. To protect American technological know-how, the U.S. government has also reportedly slowed down hiring approvals for Chinese nationals selected to work for U.S. semiconductor companies.

Huawei Executive According to Huawei’s website, Xu, 52, has worked for Huawei for 26 years, in different positions ranging from chief strategy and marketing officer, to chief products and solutions officer. He is one of Huawei’s rotating chairmen. According to court documents obtained by the Wall Street Journal and Reuters, CNEX alleges that the Xiamen University professor, identified as Bo Mao, asked CNEX in June 2016 for some circuit boards as part of his academic research project. In 2017, CNEX provided a computer memory board to Mao after he signed a licensing agreement, which included a strict non-disclosure provision, with CNEX.

The U.S. company said Mao didn’t disclose that he had a cooperation agreement with Huawei to supply the technology to it. Without telling CNEX, Mao prepared a technological report about CNEX’s computer memory board and handed it to HiSilicon’s database containing intel on its competitors, known as the “D-box directory.” CNEX claimed that Mao was directed by Xu, the chief orchestrator of the scheme. At a pre-trial hearing, a Huawei lawyer confirmed that a CNEX document about SSD technology was submitted to its D-box directory, and that Xu “was in the chain of command that had requested” information about CNEX. But Huawei rejected the claim of IP theft. It said the document concerned products and open source technology, and that the cooperation between Huawei and Xiamen University was for developing database software.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/huawei-executive-accused-of-orchestrating-us-trade-theft-scheme_2934635.html

Chinese National Charged With Importing Fentanyl Analogues to US

A Chinese national who has held high-level executive positions in Chinese chemical and pharmaceutical companies was arrested and charged with importing more than 1,000 pounds of drugs, including fentanyl analogues, to the United States, the U.S. Justice Department said on May 22. Hao Qin, also known as “John Chin,” 32, was arrested after landing at the Los Angeles International Airport on May 21, and made an initial appearance in the U.S. District Court in the Central District of California the next day. He was charged with drug and money laundering offenses.

U.S. prosecutors allege that since at least 2012, Qin, along with several co-conspirators, used pharmaceutical and chemical companies in China to distribute more than 1,100 pounds (500 kilograms) of synthetic drugs and analogues to the United States. The companies Qin worked for weren’t publicly identified by federal law enforcement. During the time of the alleged conspiracy, Qin held high-level executive positions in those companies, and worked with individuals, including another executive and an assistant, to carry out the scheme, according to court documents. Among the drugs imported through Qin’s chemical business were two potent analogues of the opioid drug fentanyl: furanyl fentanyl and 4-FIBF, the DOJ said.

According to court documents, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents received information about Qin’s activities from his former client in the United States, who started cooperating with the agency’s investigation in 2016. Prosecutors also charged Qin with laundering the proceeds of his international drug business. This included allegedly receiving wire payments from a former client who was paying off a drug debt of more than $500,000 owed to Qin. If found guilty, Qin faces up to 20 years in prison and a fine of $1 million if convicted of conspiracy to import drug analogues, and up to 20 years imprisonment and a fine of $500,000 if convicted of money laundering.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/chinese-national-charged-with-importing-fentanyl-analogues-to-us_2934556.html

50 children saved after police bust online pedophile ring: Interpol

International police group Interpol said Thursday that nine people had been arrested in Thailand, Australia and the U.S. and 50 children had been rescued after investigators took down an online pedophilia ring. More arrests were expected as police in nearly 60 countries pursue investigations stemming from an Interpol operation launched two years ago into a hidden "dark web" site with 63,000 users worldwide.

Fifty children were rescued following the arrests. Police are trying to identify an additional 100 in images that had been shared on the internet's uncharted corners. Interpol said its Operation Blackwrist began after it found material that was traced back to a subscription-based site on the dark web, where people can use encrypted software to hide behind layers of secrecy. Dark web sites can't be found through search engines, and users need to have the specific URL address to land on a site. Interpol enlisted help from national agencies worldwide, with the US Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) department eventually tracking the site's IP address, where new photos and videos were posted weekly. The first arrests came in early 2018, when the site's main administrator, Montri Salangam, was detained in Thailand, and another administrator, Ruecha Tokputza, was captured in Australia.

'Child's worst nightmare' Salangam, whose victims included one of his nephews, was sentenced in June last year to 146 years in prison by Thai courts, while an associate, a pre-school teacher, got 36 years. Tokputza was handed a 40-year prison term at his trial in Australia last Friday, the longest ever for child sex offences in the country.

The Australian Associated Press reported that Tokputza, 31, pleaded guilty to 50 counts of abuse of 11 babies and children – one just 15 months old – between 2011 and 2018. "You are a child's worst nightmare, you are every parent's horror, you are a menace to the community," Judge Liesl Chapman said in Adelaide. Interpol did not identify the others arrested.

The HSI's regional attache in Bangkok, Eric McLoughlin, said in the statement that "numerous arrests" had been made in the U.S. Some held "positions of public trust," he said, and one individual was abusing his two-year-old stepbrother. "Operation Blackwrist sends a clear message to those abusing children, producing child sexual exploitation material and sharing the images online: We see you, and you will be brought to justice," Interpol's Secretary General Juergen Stock said.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/50-children-saved-after-police-bust-online-pedophile-ring-interpol-1.4433757