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the ministry of state security disclosed: foreign companies bribed domestic executives to steal china's state secrets in the rare earth field

2024-09-12

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during the national security education day on april 15 this year, the national security authorities disclosed a case in which a foreign company illegally collected and stole state secrets in the rare earth field. under the command of foreign employees, ye, a chinese employee of the company, bribed cheng, the deputy general manager of a domestic rare earth company, to spy on and illegally provide seven confidential state secrets for foreign countries. in november 2023, the intermediate people's court of nanchang city, jiangxi province, sentenced ye to 11 years in prison for the crime of buying and illegally providing state secrets abroad, and sentenced cheng to 11 years and 6 months in prison for the crime of illegally providing state secrets abroad and the crime of accepting bribes.

using trade cooperation as a cover

in 2017, ye moumou visited a rare earth company in china on behalf of a foreign nonferrous metal company and got acquainted with cheng mou, the then business section chief. as they were of similar age, the two quickly became acquainted. since then, cheng mou has also visited overseas for return visits accompanied by ye moumou many times.

after that, as the working relationship became increasingly close, ye frequently asked cheng for data related to the rare earth industry on the grounds that it was necessary for cooperation with overseas clients. in order to "maintain customer relationships", cheng, knowing the risk of leaking secrets, still took a chance and provided data to ye as requested again and again.

bundled by economic interests

as cheng was promoted from business section chief to business department manager, and then to deputy general manager, he realized that his "value" was getting higher and higher, and his desire for money was getting stronger and stronger. so he took the initiative to propose to cooperate with ye to earn the difference in rare earth trade through the participation of a third-party company. the other party thought for a moment and agreed. cheng received half of the profit alone. in exchange, cheng continued to provide ye with inside information about the rare earth industry. before the incident, cheng had earned a total of about us$510,000 from a foreign non-ferrous metal company by collecting cash and remittances from abroad, most of which was used for his wife and daughter's expenses abroad.