A Professor Subjected To 219 Years In prison For Sending Military Chip To China

A professor at the University of California is subjected to a sentence of up to 219 years in prison because he was found guilty of illegally sending chips that can be used in the military to China.

Here is how vital the chip is:

The professor in question, Yi-Chi Shih, a Chinese-American adjunct professor and electrical engineer at UCLA, was convicted in June by a jury in Los Angeles. The professor was declared guilty on 18 courts with multiple fraud charges and illegal export.

Shih and Kiet Ahn Mai, another defendant, collaborated to deceive an America-based semiconductor chip manufacturer. Mai pretended to be a customer to get the designs for the chip from the company, and then he sent it to China.

The receiver in China was a company with Shih as the president. He funded the plan via a bank account in the US, which had the money paid by a company in China.

According to a statement on the matter by the United States’ Department of Justice:

Industrial spying has long been what fueled the tension between China and the US, which has recently become trade negotiations. The US has charged some Chinese companies, like Huawei, with stealing the technology secrets from its companies.