Chinese man pleads guilty to stealing Monsanto trade secret in the US

Name: US sanctions DJI and 7 other Chinese companies over alleged Xinjiang human rights abuses
Uploaded: 2022-01-07T06:07:44.000Z
Duration: 1 min 42 s
Description: US sanctions DJI and 7 other Chinese companies over alleged Xinjiang human rights abuses

Haitao Xiang, 44, admits to conspiracy to commit economic espionage and awaits sentencing

US prosecutors say Xiang had Monsanto’s proprietary farming software on his device the day after he left the company and was about to fly to China

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A Chinese scientist who had worked for Monsanto and one of its subsidiaries has admitted stealing an agriculture trade secret after investigators found intellectual property on one of his electronic devices after he left the companies. Photo: The Maui News via AP, File

Associated Press

Published: 2:07pm, 7 Jan 2022Updated: 3:17pm, 7 Jan 2022

A Chinese national admitted in United States federal court on Thursday that he stole a trade secret while working for Monsanto and one of its subsidiaries in Missouri, federal prosecutors said.

Haitao Xiang, 44, formerly of Chesterfield, Missouri, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit economic espionage. He was indicted by a grand jury on eight charges in 2019.

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US sanctions DJI and 7 other Chinese companies over alleged Xinjiang human rights abuses

Prosecutors said in a news release that Xiang transferred a trade secret to a memory card and then tried to take it to China for the benefit of the Chinese government.

Xiang worked as an imaging scientist for Monsanto and one of its subsidiaries, The Climate Corporation, from 2008 to 2017.

Court records say Monsanto and The Climate Corporation developed a digital online farming software platform to help farmers collect field data to increase productivity.

Part of the platform was an algorithm called the Nutrient Optimiser, which the companies considered a trade secret and their intellectual property, prosecutors said.