Engineers Charged with Industrial Espionage
Prosecutors, working with the National Intelligence Service in South Korea have charged four engineers with trying to sell mobile broadband technology to a company in the USA for US$190 million says the Yonhap news agency, quoting a prosecution statement.
The technologies they stole included "technical memos" containing technical analysis of WiBro development, "base station channel cards" which determine the performance of WiBro base stations, and test results of related equipment.
Three of the engineers are former employees of Posdata, affiliated with the country's top steel maker POSCO are alleged to have received information from a current employee and had set up a shell company in the USA which they planned to use to then resell the technology.
Prosecutors have arrested Hwang, the current Posdata employee, and are seeking the extradition of the remaining three who are understood to be currently in the USA.
Posdata is understood to have spent somewhere in the region of US$80 million developing the WiBro platform."
Posted to the site on 21st May 2007
