Xiang Dong Yu, a former engineer with Ford Motors, has been charged with stealing trade secrets from the automaker. He was arrested on October 14 at the O'Hare International Airport in Chicago when he arrived from China on a visit. He had accepted a job at the China branch of a US company in 2006, and just after accepting the new job and before his departure from Ford he had copied 4,000 Ford documents with sensitive information from a protected computer onto an external hard drive. The documents included, among other things, design specs for electrical distribution systems.

Yu had tried using Ford documents to get a job with a Chinese auto company four years ago as well. If found guilty, Yu could face a maximum 10 years' incarceration and a fine of $250,000.

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