Chinese-born engineer guilty of stealing US military secrets

A Chinese-born engineer has been found guilty of conspiring to export US defense technology to China, including data on an electronic propulsion system that could make submarines virtually undetectable.

In Santa Ana, California, Chi Mak was also found guilty of acting as an unregistered foreign agent, attempting to violate export control laws and making false statements to the FBI.

Prosecutors had dropped a charge of actually exporting defence articles. It took jurors close to three days to reach a verdict after a six-week trial.

Assistant US Attorney Greg Staples said Mak faces up to 45 years in prison when he is sentenced on September 10.

“We were confident from the start and we’re very happy with the verdict,” Staples said.

The government accused Mak, a naturalised US citizen, of taking thousands of pages of documents from his defence contractor employer, Power Paragon of Anaheim, and giving them to his brother, who passed them along to Chinese authorities over a number of years.