Samsung top executive arrested in South Korea for stealing data from the company and leaking it to China
The losses suffered by Samsung due to the theft were estimated at at least $233 million
A former Samsung top manager has been arrested in Korea. He is accused of allegedly stealing data to build a copy of Samsung's factory in China. The damage from the theft was estimated at $233 million.
Source. Reuters writes about the detention of one of the former executives of Korean Samsung.
The latter specifies that it happened in May 2023. The name of the 65-year-old arrested has not been disclosed, but it is known that he worked for the company for 18 years and held a senior position in the Korean chipmaker SK Hynix for ten years.
The detainee is suspected of illegally obtaining Samsung's confidential data, including drawings, floor plans, and details on the use of impurities in production. With them, he wanted to build a microelectronic production facility 1.5 km from Samsung's facility in Xi'an, China, in 2018-2019.
The initiative was curtailed because the Taiwanese firm, which was going to invest $6.2 billion in the project, changed its mind.
Then the former top manager received $357 million from Chinese investors and used the money to start working on "trial products" at a factory in Chengdu, China, which was allegedly built with the data stolen from Samsung.
The losses incurred by the Korean company due to the theft were estimated at at least $233 million. Prosecutors noted that the scale of the crime was incomparable to previous leaks. Typically, people lured key employees and used reverse engineering techniques to copy, for example, software.
"If the plant were to be 'recreated' and mass-produced products of similar quality, it would cause irreparable damage to the Korean semiconductor industry," the prosecution said.
The court date will be set later. The detainee denies the charges.
In addition to him, the prosecutor's office also suspects six other people as accomplices: one employee of the Samsung contractor and five employees of a Chinese semiconductor company.
Background. As reported, Samsung hopes to overtake TSMC in chip manufacturing technology within 5 years.
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