Libertyville Man Arrested For Theft Of Trade Secrets From CME Group
CHICAGO (STMW) - A northwest suburban man who was employed as a senior software engineer with the Chicago-based CME Group, was arrested Friday after being charged with theft of trade secrets.
The arrest of 49-year-old Chunlai Yang, of Libertyville, was announced Saturday by the Chicago FBI office.
Yang, who is a naturalized United States citizen, was taken into custody Friday morning at his CME office, at 550 W. Washington St. in Chicago, without incident, by FBI special agents, a release from the FBI said. Yang was charged in a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago with one count of theft of trade secrets, which is a felony offense.
According to the complaint, Yang has been employed at the CME since 2000, and is responsible for writing computer code. Beginning in May of this year, CME security personnel began monitoring Yang's computer activity, the release said. They discovered that thousands of files had been downloaded to his computer, and some were then copied to removable storage devices, such as thumb drives. Many of the downloaded files were critical to the operation of the CME group and are considered proprietary in nature and contain protected source code, the FBI said.
Subsequent investigation by the FBI determined that Yang had also been in e-mail contact with the assistant director of the Logistics and Trade Bureau for the Zhangiagang Free Trade Zone. One of the e-mails sent by Yang contained an attachment, which was a CME document containing protected source code and proprietary information.
It was also determined that Yang had booked travel to China on a commercial airline flight, scheduled to depart from O'Hare International Airport on July 7.
Yang appeared before Magistrate Judge Michael T. Mason in Chicago, late Friday, at which time he was formally charged. Yang was ordered held without bond, pending his next court appearance, which is scheduled for Wednesday, July 6. Until then, Yang will be housed at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago.
If convicted of the charge pending against him, Yang faces a possible sentence of up to 10 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release.
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