把美国电动车商业秘密卖给卧底探员牟利逾130万美元：宁波居民被判监禁24个月
美国司法部12月16日宣布，居住在中国宁波的加拿大与德国双重国籍居民 Klaus Pflugbeil（59岁）在纽约州苏福克县 Central Islip 的联邦法院被法官 Joan M. Azrack 判处24个月监禁，罪名是共谋发送属于一家美国头部电动车企业的商业秘密。司法部称，他靠被盗商业秘密获利超过130万美元；同案被告邵义龙（Yilong Shao）仍在逃。Pflugbeil 已于2024年6月认罪。
据司法部，该受害企业2019年收购了一家加拿大自动化精密点胶泵与电池装配线制造商，Pflugbeil 与邵义龙都曾在该加拿大企业任职。两人最迟自2019年起就谋划利用受害企业的商业秘密经营自己的生意：Pflugbeil 告诉邵义龙自己有「大量原始文件」，邵义龙则确认「所有原始装配图纸的PDF我们都有」。为掩盖盗窃，Pflugbeil 曾写道，他改制的一份文件「格式不同，看起来非常原创、不像副本」。
2020年7月前后，Pflugbeil 加入邵义龙此前创办的公司，该公司其后扩张至中国、加拿大、德国与巴西，生产与加拿大制造商相同的精密点胶泵和电池装配线，并以受害企业产品的替代来源自我营销，在 Google、YouTube 与 LinkedIn 上投放广告，每周展示数万次。
2023年9月11日，联邦调查局卧底探员在内华达州拉斯维加斯一个包装加工行业展会上假扮有意在纽约长岛建厂购买电池装配线的商人，经介绍与邵义龙接洽、其后与 Pflugbeil 通过电子邮件联系。同年11月17日前后，Pflugbeil 把一份66页的技术文件方案发给卧底探员，其中至少六张图纸实际是受害企业的电池装配商业秘密；该方案为装配线报价超过1,500万美元。
宣布量刑的包括纽约东区联邦检察官 Breon Peace、司法部国家安全司助理部长 Matthew G. Olsen 与联邦调查局纽约外勤办公室助理主任 James E. Dennehy。Peace 表示，被告在中国建起出售美国企业敏感技术的生意，自以为身在美国检察官管辖之外，这一想法是错误的。本案由司法部与商务部的颠覆性技术打击力量协调调查起诉，案号 24-CR-238。
China Resident Sentenced to 24 Months for Conspiring to Send a U.S. EV Company's Trade Secrets to an Undercover Agent
The U.S. Department of Justice announced on December 16 that Klaus Pflugbeil, 59, a citizen of Canada and Germany residing in Ningbo, China, was sentenced by Judge Joan M. Azrack in federal court in Central Islip, in Suffolk County, New York, to 24 months in prison for conspiring to send trade secrets belonging to a leading U.S.-based electric vehicle company. The Justice Department said he made over $1.3 million on the stolen trade secrets; his co-defendant, Yilong Shao, remains at large. Pflugbeil pleaded guilty in June 2024.
According to the Justice Department, the victim company acquired a Canada-based manufacturer of automated, precision dispensing pumps and battery assembly lines in 2019, and both Pflugbeil and Shao are former employees of that Canadian manufacturer. By no later than 2019, the two planned to use the victim company's trade secrets for their own business: Pflugbeil told Shao he had "a lot of original documents," and Shao confirmed that "we have all of original assembly drawings by PDF." To obfuscate the theft, Pflugbeil wrote of one document he created that it was "in a different format, so it looks very original and not like a copy."
In or about July 2020, Pflugbeil joined the company Shao had previously established, which has since expanded to locations in China, Canada, Germany and Brazil, making the same precision dispensing pumps and battery assembly lines the Canadian manufacturer developed and marketing itself as an alternative source for the victim company's products, with advertisements on Google, YouTube and LinkedIn shown tens of thousands of times in any given week.
On September 11, 2023, undercover FBI agents posing as businesspeople interested in buying a battery assembly line for a facility on Long Island, New York, attended a packaging and processing trade show in Las Vegas, Nevada, and were introduced to Shao and later to Pflugbeil by email. On or about November 17, 2023, Pflugbeil sent a detailed 66-page technical documentation proposal to an undercover agent; at least half a dozen drawings in it were in fact the victim company's battery assembly trade secret information, and the proposal quoted the battery assembly line at over $15 million.
The sentencing was announced by Breon Peace, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Matthew G. Olsen, Assistant Attorney General for National Security, and James E. Dennehy, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI's New York Field Office. Peace said the defendant built a business in China to sell sensitive technology belonging to a U.S. company, believing incorrectly that he was outside the reach of U.S. prosecutors. The case, docket number 24-CR-238, was coordinated through the Justice and Commerce Departments' Disruptive Technology Strike Force.
来源：美国司法部
发布：GSM·美国（发布链接）
图片来源：图：位于纽约州苏福克县 Central Islip 的 Alfonse M. D'Amato 联邦法院大楼，本案在此宣判。Americasroof 摄，CC BY-SA 3.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: The Alfonse M. D'Amato United States Courthouse in Central Islip, Suffolk County, New York, where the sentence was imposed. Photo by Americasroof, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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