A Canadian man who lives in China was arrested Tuesday and held in New York after he and a enterprise companion have been accused of attempting to promote secret battery manufacturing know-how belonging to Tesla.
Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn requested a decide to carry Klaus Pflugbeil with out bail on a cost of theft of commerce secrets and techniques. He was arrested after assembly with undercover brokers Tuesday on Lengthy Island and attempting to promote them know-how used to provide battery components, the workplace of the U.S. legal professional for the Jap District of New York stated in a press release.
The second man, Yilong Shao, 47, a Chinese language citizen, stays at giant, prosecutors stated. A public defender representing Mr. Pflugbeil, 58, didn’t reply to requests for remark late Tuesday.
Court docket paperwork recognized the corporate whose secrets and techniques have been stolen solely as “a U.S.-based main producer of battery-powered electrical automobiles and battery vitality methods.” That description and different particulars in court docket paperwork matches Tesla.
Mr. Pflugbeil and Mr. Shao are each former workers of Hibar Programs, a Canadian firm that bought know-how for battery manufacturing that Tesla acquired in 2019. That they had entry to drawings and different paperwork that allowed others to repeat the manufacturing course of, based on prosecutors.
After the sale of Hibar, the lads fashioned an organization that attempted to promote the agency’s know-how through adverts on Google, posts on LinkedIn and a YouTube video, based on court docket paperwork. They have been conscious the know-how was proprietary, prosecutors stated.
Undercover brokers met Mr. Shao at a commerce present in Las Vegas in September and expressed curiosity in shopping for the knowledge, which Tesla had confirmed was secret. The brokers persuaded Mr. Pflugbeil to go to New York by telling him they wished to work out a deal.
The arrest demonstrates that the federal government “will prosecute those that have interaction in theft of commerce secrets and techniques that locations U.S. companies at a aggressive drawback, undermines innovation and creates a possible nationwide safety danger,” Breon Peace, the U.S. legal professional for the Jap District of New York, stated in a press release.