FBI Traces Trail Of Spy Ring To China
Federal agents were searching Walter and Christina Liew's home here last July for evidence of corporate espionage when a safe deposit box key caught their attention. They asked Ms. Liew if she knew where the bank was located. Her husband told her in Chinese to say she didn't, according to an account later given by federal prosecutors.
An agent who understood Chinese picked up on the exchange and followed Ms. Liew as she left the house, drove to an Oakland bank and tried to empty a safe deposit box the key fit. The box, according to prosecutors, contained documents outlining a more than decadelong plot to steal DuPont Co. corporate secrets and sell them to a Chinese government-owned company.
The Liews now are at the center of a case that the Justice Department says marks the first time U.S. officials have filed criminal espionage charges against a state-owned foreign company. The company, Pangang Group, is fighting the charges, which were unveiled a month ago in San Francisco. The Liews were charged with conspiring to steal trade secrets and sell them to the Chinese, charges they deny.
The allegations involve an obscure chemical and a 50-year-old technology that is hardly cutting edge, but one DuPont has wanted, for decades, to keep secret. The case, described by people intimate with its details and revealed by documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, provides a rare view inside a stepped-up drive the federal government has mounted to combat organized efforts by foreign governments to steal U.S. intellectual property.
'What we've learned since the end of the Cold War is that when it comes to the economy, our adversaries and even our allies will spy on us when it's in their economic interest,' said Frank Figliuzzi, the Federal Bureau of Investigation's assistant director for counterintelligence. He wouldn't comment on the DuPont-related case but said that, speaking generally, the FBI is doubling down on corporate-espionage investigations because despite years of attempts by the bureau to raise awareness at companies and prosecute trade-secret theft, the problem is growing.
Since passage of a law in 1996 giving the Justice Department wide powers to prosecute corporate espionage, only about a dozen cases have been brought. The number of cases has remained low even as Department officials publicly announced attempted crackdowns on corporate spying before, including one in 2007. Convictions are hard to get because they require tying companies directly to foreign governments, said Patrick Rowan, a former national-security prosecutor.
Lisa Monaco, assistant U.S. attorney general for national security, who also wouldn't comment on the DuPont-related case, said that while espionage is traditionally thought of as nations trying to steal military or diplomatic secrets, 'today's espionage also involves nation states like China focused on stealing research and development, sensitive technology, corporate trade secrets and other materials to advance their economic and military capabilities.'
China regularly denies that its government or state-owned companies engage in concerted efforts at corporate espionage. On a broader level, China aims at gathering already-discovered technical know-how to build global competitors through legitimate means such as joint ventures. More controversially, China has been insisting that foreign companies hand over technology as the price of market access. Within China, many foreign companies are so concerned about intellectual-property theft that they avoid bringing in their cutting-edge technology and manufacturing processes.
Federal law-enforcement officials contend many U.S. companies do too little to protect their interests, failing to monitor employees and rarely bringing problems to federal agents for fear of bad publicity.
That is not the case with DuPont. It hires former high-ranking federal agents to keep tabs on its intellectual property and notifies federal officials of problems. The Justice Department has won at least four DuPont-related cases in recent years, among them convictions in 2009 of a former DuPont employee for stealing information related to Kevlar high-strength fabric and giving it to a Korean company, and of another for stealing trade secrets related to light-emitting diodes and taking them to China.
DuPont tries as hard to protect long-established technologies as new ones. It was more than 50 years ago that the company laid the groundwork for an efficient process to produce titanium dioxide, a white pigment used in paints and other products, according to court filings. The company honed the process through the years, becoming the world's largest producer of the chemical. To keep its complex production process secret, DuPont allowed most employees to know about only individual pieces of it.
Chinese state-owned companies, including Pangang, a conglomerate based in Panzhihua in Sichuan Province, talked for years with DuPont about opening a joint-venture titanium plant in China, say people familiar with the matter, but a deal was never worked out.
In the 1990s, according to documents confiscated from Mr. Liew in Orinda last summer and since filed in federal district court in San Francisco, Pangang and Chinese-government officials started asking businessmen to procure DuPont's proprietary titanium-production methods.
A spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington called that assertion 'groundless,' saying: 'There would not be any kind of instruction or request to Chinese businessmen. They behave on their own behalf.' He said the DuPont case is a business dispute and the businessmen involved 'have no connection to the Chinese government.'
Pangang didn't respond to requests for comment. A former chairman of the company denied it dealt in stolen intellectual property.
One document taken in the search of the Liews' home and filed with the court is a letter Mr. Liew addressed in 2004 to Pangang officials, in which he stated that a high-ranking Chinese Communist Party leader asked him in 1991 to bring titanium-dioxide-making secrets back to China.
'Some years ago China let me know that she urgently needed titanium white by chlorination technology,' the letter reads. 'After many years of follow-up research and application, my company has possession and mastery of the complete DuPont way.'
In an affidavit filed in court, Mr. Liew─a 54-year-old Malaysian-born naturalized U.S. citizen who worked in Silicon Valley as an electrical engineer─said, 'Those documents are not accurate or reliable.' Mr. Liew said he had misrepresented facts, including his employment history and relationships with Chinese officials.
A lawyer for Mr. Liew said during a bail proceeding that his client hadn't told the truth in some documents cited by the government, including business pitches that claimed ties to Chinese Communist Party officials.
A former Pangang executive to whom the letter was addressed, Hong Jibi, said he was unfamiliar with Mr. Liew. 'I don't know him, I never met him, I never dealt with him, and I never got any letter from him,' Mr. Hong said in Beijing.
Over the past 15 years, according to court filings and people familiar with the matter, Mr. Liew hired several former DuPont employees knowledgeable about specific pieces of the titanium process─a practice that isn't illegal.
One was Tim Spitler, an engineer in Reno, Nev., with a reputation for great titanium expertise. He told a friend around 2003 that he was working with Mr. Liew to cobble together titanium-making know-how to sell to a Chinese company, the friend said in an interview. A lawyer for Mr. Spitler said he eventually agreed to cooperate with investigators.
Another was Tze Chao, a 36-year DuPont veteran. Mr. Chao─who last week pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit economic espionage─said in a statement filed in court that shortly after his 2002 retirement, Pangang officials asked him to provide DuPont titanium-dioxide-making information. Mr. Chao said he hooked up with Mr. Liew after learning Mr. Liew was trying to sell similar information to Pangang.
Prosecutors have filed in court letters purportedly written by Mr. Liew in which he says he has sold DuPont titanium-oxide technology to various companies affiliated with the Chinese government.
Mr. Liew's companies received more than $12 million from a Pangang subsidiary between 2009 and 2011 for his efforts, prosecutors alleged in their indictment of the Liews. The couple, prosecutors charged, 'wired millions of dollars in proceeds from Pangang Group to Christina Liew's relatives' in China.
In 2010, DuPont received an anonymous letter saying that Mr. Liew and one of his employees, a Bay Area man who was also employed by Chevron Corp. , had sold DuPont information to a Chinese company, according to court filings.
Chevron security officials began an investigation after hearing from DuPont, court filings say, and searched the computer of the employee, named John Liu. They found documents related to DuPont technology, court filings said. Mr. Liu's lawyer noted that his client hasn't been charged. According to people familiar with the case, Mr. Liu has cooperated with prosecutors.
Chevron last March forwarded information found on Mr. Liu's computer to DuPont, which in turn brought it to FBI agents in San Francisco, said people familiar with the case.
DuPont last spring also filed a civil suit against Mr. Liew in San Francisco federal court, seeking damages for alleged theft of trade secrets. Mr. Liew's response denied that he and his partners possessed DuPont trade secrets and said there was 'no uniqueness' to its titanium-dioxide process. He filed a counterclaim alleging that DuPont had improperly obtained his trade secrets. The suit is pending.
DuPont said the case 'demonstrates that DuPont reacts swiftly and vigorously when its trade secrets are stolen. When we learned of the suspected theft, we investigated further until we had sufficient information to file suit. We also notified law enforcement.'
On July 19, FBI agents searched the Liews' gray house in Orinda, a hilly suburb about 25 miles east of San Francisco. It was during that search that an agent trailed Ms. Liew to a safe deposit box that contained documents and disk drives, prosecutors wrote last month in a court filing opposing bail for Mr. Liew. The Liews were arrested on charges of obstructing their investigation.
FBI agents soon learned that two senior Pangang executives were in California and preparing to meet with the Liews, according to lawyers familiar with the case. They included a top company executive, Zhuang Kai. Agents confiscated the Chinese executives' passports and told them to stay in the hotel in Alameda, Calif., as material witnesses while the investigation continued.
Federal agents began translating thousands of pages of Chinese-language documents confiscated from the Liews and following the leads generated.
The investigation led them to Mr. Chao, the DuPont retiree. Agents searched Mr. Chao's house in Delaware in October, according to a statement he made as part of his guilty plea. While they found some DuPont-related documents, said a person familiar with the case, they missed others.
A few days later, Mr. Chao's court filing says, he took those others into his yard and burned them. But the information the FBI did find was enough for the 77-year-old to decide to cooperate with investigators, court filings show.
Prosecutors granted immunity to the two Pangang executives visiting California so they would talk with prosecutors with their American lawyers present. In late fall prosecutors decided they could no longer hold the men as witnesses and let them return to China. Lawyers for both men say their clients have done nothing wrong.
Prosecutors went ahead with preparations for a case against others, and made plans to ask a grand jury to hand up an indictment on a Wednesday in early January, said people familiar with the case. But days before the scheduled grand jury meeting, one intended witness, Mr. Spitler, the Reno-area engineer with the wide knowledge of the titanium dioxide process, shot himself. His family hasn't returned calls requesting comment.
Prosecutors regrouped, and in early February obtained indictments that included Mr. and Ms. Liew; Pangang Group and three affiliates; a midlevel executive of a Pangang affiliate in China for whom the indictment said an arrest warrant had been issued; and a former DuPont engineer named Robert Maegerle. All were charged with conspiracy to commit economic espionage except for Mr. Maegerle, who was charged only with conspiracy to commit theft of trade secrets. He pleaded not guilty on Thursday.
Mr. Chao, in pleading guilty in San Francisco federal court a week ago to conspiracy to commit economic espionage, said he had been led astray after officials from the People's Republic of China 'overtly appealed to my Chinese ethnicity and asked me to work for the good of the PRC.'
Pangang Group's lawyers have said they believe the prosecutors must go through the Chinese judicial system to serve the indictment and are fighting the matter in court. They haven't filed a plea.
Ms. Liew pleaded not guilty Thursday. Mr. Liew intends to do so as well, his lawyer said. Mr. Liew remains in an Alameda County jail, where he has been since the July raid on his home in Orinda.
杜邦商業間諜案追根溯源到中國英文
去
年 7月﹐美國聯邦特工人員在加州奧林達（Orinnda）搜查劉元軒（Walter Liew）及其妻子喬紅（Christina Liew）的住所﹐以尋找他們從事企業間諜活動的證據﹐這時一個保險箱鑰匙引起了他們的注意。特工人員問喬紅存放這只保險箱的銀行在哪裡。據聯邦檢察官後 來提供的陳述稱﹐劉元軒用中文告訴妻子要她說不知道。一 名懂中文的特工注意到了這夫妻二人的對話﹐並在喬紅離開住所後開始跟蹤她。喬紅駕車前往奧克蘭的一家銀行﹐用那把鑰匙打開了那裡的一個保險箱﹐並試圖全部 拿走保險箱里存放的東西。據檢方人員說﹐保險箱里的文件揭示出一起實施長達10多年的陰謀﹐行動旨在盜取杜邦公司（DuPont Co.）的企業秘密﹐並把它們賣給中國一家國有企業。
劉元軒夫婦目前是一起案件的核心人物﹐美國司法部說﹐這樁案子標志著美國官員首次針 對一家外國國有企業提起了刑事間諜指控。這家名為攀鋼集團（Pangang Group）的公司正在反擊這些指控。指控的內容一個月前在美國舊金山曝光。劉元軒夫婦被控共謀竊取商業秘密﹐並將其賣給中國人。他們否認了這些指控。
Justin Scheck/The Wall Street Journal
圖為劉元軒及其妻喬紅（音）位於加州奧林達的住所。調查人員搜查該住所時發現了大量文件。
聯 邦調查局（Federal Bureau of Investigation）負責反間諜行動的助理局長費留奇（Frank Figliuzzi）說﹐冷戰結束以來我們瞭解到的情況是﹐在經濟方面﹐我們的對手、甚至我們的盟友都在為了其經濟利益對美國從事間諜活動。他不願評論這 樁與杜邦公司有關的案子﹐但表示﹐總的說來﹐聯邦調查局正在加倍努力從事商業間諜調查工作﹐因為儘管該局多年來一直試圖讓美國企業提高對商業間諜行為的警 惕﹐並對盜取商業秘密的行為提出了起訴﹐但這一問題卻越來越嚴重。
自從美國1996年通過了一項法律、賦予美國司法部起訴企業間諜行為的 廣泛權力以來﹐只有大約十幾件案子被提起訴訟。即使是在美國司法部過去幾年公開宣佈了幾起打擊企業間諜行為的行動後﹐被告上法庭的企業間諜案子依然不多﹐ 這些行動有一項是在2007年進行的。曾擔任國家安全案件公訴人的羅曼（Patrick Rowan）說﹐難以給這類案件定罪﹐因為這需要將涉案公司直接與外國政府掛起鉤來。
美國司法部負責國家安全事物的助理部長莫納格 （Lisa Monaco）說﹐雖然間諜行為傳統上被看做是國家為盜取軍事或外交秘密所開展的活動﹐但當前的間諜活動也涉及中國這樣致力於盜取研發機密、敏感技術、企 業的商業秘密及其他材料的國家﹐這些國家盜取這些秘密旨在增強其經濟和軍事能力。莫納格不願對這起與杜邦公司有關的案子發表評論。
斯比特勒(Tim Spitler)
美國聯邦執法人員承認﹐很多美國公司很少採取措施保護自己的利益﹐沒有監視員工的舉動﹐而且由於擔心聲譽受損而很少將問題反映給聯邦特工。
杜 邦則不是這樣。該公司僱傭高級別的前聯邦特工來保護其知識產權﹐並將問題報告給聯邦官員。美國司法部近年來至少在四樁與杜邦有關的案件中獲勝﹐其中包括 2009年一名前杜邦員工因竊取與凱夫勒(Kevlar)高強度材料有關的信息並將其交給一家韓國公司而被定罪﹐另有一人因竊取與發光二極管有關的商業秘 密並將其交給中國而被定罪。
杜邦在保護老牌技術上付出的努力絲毫不亞於對新技術的保護。據一份提交給法院的備案文件顯示﹐50多年前杜邦 就為加工二氧化鈦的高效生產工藝打下了基礎。這種白色顏料被用於塗料和其他產品中。多年來﹐該公司不斷改進這項工藝﹐成為全球最大的二氧化鈦生產商。杜邦 為保住這項複雜生產工藝的秘密﹐其相關員工大多只瞭解這項工藝的一小部分內容。
據知情人士說﹐包括攀鋼在內的中國國有企業曾與杜邦就在華建立鈦合資工廠談判了數年﹐但從未達成交易。攀鋼是一家總部位於四川省攀枝花的企業集團。
據去年夏天從劉元軒位於奧林達的住所查獲並於此後在舊金山聯邦地區法院備案的文件顯示﹐上世紀90年代﹐攀鋼和中國政府官員開始要商人們獲取杜邦專有的鈦生產技術。
中國駐美大使館發言人稱這一說法“毫無依據”﹐說沒有對中國商人做出任何形式的指示或要求﹐他們的所作所為是出於自己的利益。他說﹐杜邦案是一起商業糾紛﹐捲入其中的商人與中國政府無關。
攀鋼沒有回復記者的置評請求。攀鋼的一位前董事長否認該公司參與過被竊知識產權的交易。
在搜查劉元軒住所時查獲並在法院備案的文件之一是2004年劉元軒寫給攀鋼管理人員的一封信。他在信中說﹐1991年中共一位高層領導要他把二氧化鈦生產秘密帶回中國。
信中說﹐幾年前﹐中國讓我知道﹐她迫切需要氯化法生產鈦白的技術﹔經過多年的研究和應用﹐我的公司獲得並掌握了杜邦的整個工藝。
劉元軒在提交給法院的一份書面陳述中說﹐這些文件不確切、不可靠。劉元軒說﹐他錯誤表述了事實﹐包括他的僱傭歷史和與中國官員的關係。劉元軒現年54歲﹐他生於馬來西亞﹐後加入美國國籍﹐曾在硅谷做電氣工程師。
劉元軒的一位代理律師在保釋聽證會上說﹐他的當事人在政府援引的一些文件中沒有陳述事實﹐包括那些自稱與中共官員有關係的商業噱頭。
收信人之一的攀鋼前高管洪及鄙說﹐他與劉元軒不熟。洪及鄙在北京說﹐我不認識他﹐我從來沒見過他﹐我從來沒和他打過交道﹐我從來沒從他那收到過信。
根據法庭文件和知情人士的說法﹐過去15年中﹐劉元軒聘用了多位瞭解二氧化鈦生產工藝具體環節的杜邦公司前員工。這一做法並不違法。
其 中一位是內華達州里諾市的工程師斯比特勒(Tim Spitler)﹐他以鈦生產領域的專家聞名。大約在2003年他告訴一位朋友﹐他正在和劉元軒合作﹐試圖還原鈦生產工藝的專業技術知識﹐以便出售給一家 中國企業。斯比特勒的這位朋友是在接受採訪時說出上述情況的。斯比特勒的律師說﹐他最終同意與調查人員合作。
另外一位則是在杜邦公司工作 了36年的老員工Tze Chao。Tze Chao在一份提交給法庭的聲明中說﹐2002年退休後不久﹐攀鋼集團的領導要求他提供杜邦公司二氧化鈦的生產工藝信息。Tze Chao說﹐在得知劉元軒試圖向攀鋼集團出售類似信息後﹐他同劉元軒勾結起來。上週Tze Chao承認共謀實施商業間諜活動。
檢察官在法庭上提交了據說是由劉元軒寫的信件。在信中劉元軒說﹐他將杜邦公司氧化鈦生產技術出售給中國政府下屬的多家企業。
檢察官在起訴劉元軒夫妻的文件中聲稱﹐2009年至2011年﹐劉元軒的公司因為他的行動而從攀鋼集團一家附屬企業獲得了1,200多萬美元。檢察官指控說﹐劉元軒夫妻將數百萬從攀鋼集團獲得的收入匯給了劉妻在中國的親戚。
法庭文件顯示﹐2010年﹐杜邦公司收到一封匿名信﹐信中說劉元軒及其一位雇員將杜邦的信息出售給一家中國企業。劉元軒的這位雇員是舊金山灣區人﹐同時受雇於雪佛龍公司(Chevron Corp.)。
法 庭文件顯示﹐從杜邦公司瞭解到信息後﹐雪佛龍公司的特勤人員展開了調查﹐搜查了這位名叫John Liu的雇員的電腦。法庭文件顯示﹐雪佛龍公司在John Liu的電腦中發現了與杜邦公司的技術有關的文件。但John Liu的律師指出﹐John Liu還未受到指控。據知情人士透露﹐John Liu已經同檢方展開合作。
據知情人士透露﹐去年3月雪佛龍公司將在John Liu電腦上找到的信息轉發給杜邦公司。而杜邦則將這些信息交給了聯邦調查局在舊金山的特工。
去 年春天杜邦公司還在舊金山聯邦地區法院向劉元軒提起民事訴訟﹐試圖就劉元軒涉嫌竊取商業秘密提出損害賠償。對此劉元軒予以否認﹐他說自己與合作伙伴沒有竊 取杜邦公司的商業秘密﹐還說杜邦公司的二氧化鈦生產工藝“不具有獨特性”。劉元軒提起反訴﹐指控杜邦不當獲取了他的商業秘密。這起訴訟還在等待裁決。
杜邦公司說﹐此案表明在商業秘密被盜後﹐公司迅速、有力地做出反應。得知商業秘密可能被盜後﹐公司進行了進一步調查﹐直到有足夠的信息提起訴訟。同時還通知了執法部門。
7 月19日﹐聯邦調查局特工搜查了劉元軒夫婦在奧林達的灰色住宅。奧林達是舊金山以東約25英里的一個多山的郊區。檢察官上個月在一份反對保釋劉元軒的法庭 文件中寫道﹐在搜查劉元軒住宅的過程中﹐一名特工跟蹤了劉妻﹐繼而發現了存有多份文件及磁盤驅動器的保險箱。劉元軒夫婦因妨礙調查罪遭到逮捕。
知情律師說﹐聯邦調查局探員很快得知﹐攀鋼有兩位高管在加利福尼亞﹐正準備同劉氏夫婦會面。這兩人當中有一位是攀鋼高層莊凱。聯邦調查局沒收了這兩名中國人的護照﹐要求他們在調查繼續進行之時﹐作為重要證人呆在加州阿拉梅達的酒店內。
聯邦探員開始翻譯從劉氏夫婦那裡沒收的數千頁中文文件﹐並追蹤因此得到的線索。
經過調查﹐他們找到了杜邦退休員工Tze Chao。據Tze Chao的一份認罪聲明說﹐探員們於去年10月份搜查了他位於特拉華州的住所。一位知情人士說﹐雖然他們找到了一些與杜邦公司有關的文件﹐但還有一些文件沒被找到。
Tze Chao提交給法庭的文件顯示﹐幾天後他把沒被聯邦調查局找到的那些文件拿到後院燒掉了。但法庭文件顯示﹐聯邦調查局找到的信息還是足以讓77歲的Tze Chao決定與調查人員合作。
檢方承諾豁免攀鋼兩位訪問加州的高管﹐以便他們在其美國律師在場的情況下向檢方開口。深秋時節﹐檢方認定無法繼續再把這兩人當證人扣留﹐於是讓他們回到了中國。兩人的律師都說﹐他們的客戶沒有過錯。
知情人士說﹐檢方繼續為起訴其他幾人做著準備﹐並在1月上旬的一個週三制定了要求大陪審團提起訴訟的計劃。但在還有幾天就要召開計劃中的大陪審團會議時﹐本來將要作證、熟知鈦白工藝的斯比特勒開槍自殺。他的家人沒有回復尋求置評的電話。
檢 方重振旗鼓﹐在2月上旬取得了大陪審團的起訴書﹐被訴人包括劉氏夫婦、攀鋼集團及其三家子公司、攀鋼某中國子公司的一位中層管理人員（起訴書說﹐針對此人 的逮捕令已經發出）﹐以及一位名叫Robert Maegerle的杜邦前工程師。除了Maegerle外﹐所有人都被訴共謀從事經濟間諜活動。Maegerle只是被訴共謀竊取商業機密。週四他表示不 認罪。
Tze Chao一週前在舊金山一家聯邦法庭承認共謀從事經濟間諜活動﹐當時他說﹐在中國官員蓄意強調我的華裔身份、要求我為中國利益工作之後﹐我誤入了歧途。
攀鋼集團的律師曾表示美國檢方必須經過中國司法系統才能起訴﹐目前他們正在法庭上為此案辯護。他們尚未向法庭做出認罪或不認罪的表態。
劉元軒的妻子喬紅週四表示不認罪。劉元軒的律師說﹐他也打算這樣做。劉元軒仍在阿拉梅達縣的一個監獄里﹐自從去年7月份他位於奧林達的住所被突擊搜查以來﹐劉元軒一直被關在那所監獄。
Justin Scheck / Evan Perez
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