US charges Chinese spies with targeting case into telecoms company, likely Huawei
- Intelligence officers Guochun He and Zheng Wang are accused of bribing a law enforcement employee for information in a pending case against a telecoms giant
- The case was one of three US Attorney General Merrick Garland discussed on Monday involving 13 individuals the US contends acted illegally on behalf of Beijing
The US Justice Department on Monday charged two men it said were Chinese intelligence agents with trying to obstruct a criminal investigation into a China-based global telecommunications company that, while not identified in the charging documents, aligns with the Chinese giant Huawei Technologies.
US Attorney General Merrick Garland also announced another criminal case he said concerned efforts by Beijing to interfere in US affairs, and discussed a third from last week – in all, involving 13 individuals the US contends were acting illegally on behalf of the Chinese government.
Huawei did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But Bloomberg and Reuters reported that a person familiar with the case identified the company as Huawei, which was indicted in New York in 2019 on fraud charges and in 2020 with federal racketeering and conspiracy charges for allegedly stealing trade secrets from US companies.
In its indictment, the Justice Department identified the two men, Guochun He and Zheng Wang, as intelligence officers from the People’s Republic of China.
“This was an egregious attempt by PRC intelligence officers to shield a PRC-based company from accountability and to undermine the integrity of our judicial system,” Garland said in announcing the case.