A former Samsung executive has been arrested and charged with stealing plans and designs from the South Korean company in order to set up its own chip factory in China.. This was reported by the Suwon District Prosecutor’s Office, which revealed the framework behind this peculiar case.
The subject in question is a 65-year-old man, who held a senior management position at Samsung for 18 years. However, over the past decade he had moved on to another company in the semiconductor industry. Both the identity of the detainee and the company for which he worked have remained secret.
The news agency yonhap indicates that, between 2018 and 2019, the former Samsung executive illegally accessed all kinds of confidential information belonging to said company. From chip and process design plans to the engineering data needed to set up a semiconductor plant.
The authorities accuse the accused of try to install an exact copy of one of the factories that the South Korean company has in China. Task for which he did not act alone, since they have already identified and accused at least 6 accomplices.
A subject wanted to assemble a replica of a Samsung factory in China
Espionage and allegations of copying or patent infringement are far from new to the semiconductor industry. However, this case is truly curious. After all, the former Samsung executive isn’t being accused of wanting to copy South Korean technology, but to try to create a replica of one of its factories.
But the most striking thing about this story is that the person arrested wanted to build the plant in Xi’an, China, only 1.5 kilometers from where the Samsung factory that I was trying to copy is located.
Of course, setting up a chip factory is not something that can be done without great financial support. Prosecutors in the case assure that a Taiwanese company would have committed an investment of more than 6,000 million dollars for the installation of the plant in question. However, the agreement did not prosper.
But the story did not end there. Despite not having the necessary financing to carry out the project on a full scale, the criminal obtained contributions from Chinese investors. It is estimated that he received just under 360 million dollars, a much lower sum than originally targeted. However, he used it to produce demos using Samsung technology at a factory in Chengdu, China.
a complex plan
The Suwon District Prosecutor’s Office says that the businessman used a peculiar method to steal the information necessary to set up the chip factory. Specifically, it is indicated that the subject hired about 200 employees from two South Korean companies: Samsung and SK Hynix; the latter, born within Hyundai and today belonging to the SK Group conglomerate.
Later, he instructed workers to steal and use Samsung’s secret data for chip design and manufacturing. The authorities estimate that the leak of trade secrets caused damages of more than 230 million dollars to the South Korean corporation.
Regarding the former manager, he is accused of violating the laws for the protection of industrial technology and prevention against unfair competition from South Korea. For now, it is unknown what punishment he faces for his actions. Despite this, prosecutors made it clear that the crime for which he has been arrested is very serious. “This is such a serious case that it is difficult to compare it in terms of the scale of the crime and the degree of damage with previous cases of semiconductor technology leaks,” they said.