Chinese Nationals Held in Alleged Scheme

[Herman]

I wonder if this might have the same implications as the sale of manufacturing equipment by Toshiba to the Soviet Union? It gave them huge advances in the quieting of their SSNs.

 

 

Chinese Nationals Held in Alleged Scheme

 

By GILLIAN FLACCUS

The Associated Press

Monday, November 7, 2005; 10:57 PM

WashingtonPost

 

SANTA ANA, Calif. -- A federal judge on Monday denied bail for two Chinese nationals accused of conspiring to steal sensitive documents on U.S. Navy warship technology and smuggle them to China.

 

Tai Wang Mak, a broadcast and engineering director for the Phoenix North American Chinese Channel, and his wife, Fuk Heung Li, were arrested Oct. 28 in Los Angeles as they prepared to board a flight to China.

 

In Li's luggage, authorities found a disk that contained information on U.S. technology designed to suppress the noise of submarine propulsion systems, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Deirdre Eliot. The disk had been encrypted with a Chinese code.

 

Mak's attorney, John Early, argued that prosecutors hadn't proved the information was classified and stressed that his client had not been charged with espionage.

 

U.S. Magistrate Judge Marc Goldman scheduled a hearing for Nov. 15, after a grand jury hears evidence in the case.

 

Also charged in the case are Mak's brother, Chi Mak, a naturalized U.S. citizen from China, and his wife, Rebecca Laiwah Chiu, an American of Chinese descent. The four face charges of stealing government property, aiding and abetting, transportation of stolen goods and conspiracy.

 

Chi Mak allegedly took computer disks from Anaheim defense contractor Power Paragon, where he was lead engineer on a sensitive research project involving Navy warships. Authorities said his wife helped copy the information. As of Monday, she had not posted the $300,000 bail set last week. Chi Mak was ordered held without bail.

 

Eliot said authorities recovered restricted documents on the DDX Destroyer, considered the destroyer of the future, that were marked "for official use only."

 

They also found two lists in Chinese asking Chi Mak to get documents about submarine torpedo technology, electromagnetic artillery systems, weapon standardization, early warning technology to detect incoming missiles and defenses against nuclear attack, Eliot said.

 

She said the information was to be fed to China's science and technology committee, "basically equivalent to the government itself."

 

Authorities believe Chi Mak has been feeding information to the committee since 1983, including highly sensitive information about Aegis warships, Eliot said.