ST. Louis (AP) —A federal prosecutor said a Chinese admitted in federal court on Thursday stole trade secrets while working at one of Monsanto’s and Missouri’s subsidiaries.
Hai Tao Shan, 44, from Chesterfield, Missouri, has pleaded guilty to a plot to conduct economic espionage.He was Indicted by a grand jury With 8 bills in 2019.
The prosecution said in a news release that Sho had transferred the trade secret to a memory card and tried to bring it to China for the benefit of the Chinese government.
From 2008 to 2017, Xiang worked as an imaging scientist for Monsanto and one of its subsidiaries, The Climate Corporation.
According to court records, Monsanto and Climate Corporation have developed a digital online agricultural software platform to help farmers collect field data to increase their productivity.
The prosecution said part of the platform was an algorithm called a nutrition optimizer, which companies regarded as trade secrets and their intellectual property.
The day after leaving the company in June 2017, Sho attempted to fly to China. During the investigation, the prosecutor said he discovered that one of Xiang’s electronic devices contained a copy of the nutrition optimizer.
Xiang flew to China, where he worked at the Soil Science Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He was arrested when he returned to the United States.
He will be sentenced on April 7.