A Canadian man who lives in China was arrested Tuesday and held in New York after he and a enterprise accomplice had been accused of making an attempt to promote secret battery manufacturing know-how belonging to Tesla.
Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn requested a decide to carry Klaus Pflugbeil with out bail on a cost of theft of commerce secrets and techniques. He was arrested after assembly with undercover brokers Tuesday on Lengthy Island and making an attempt to promote them know-how used to supply battery elements, the workplace of the U.S. legal professional for the Japanese District of New York stated in an announcement.
The second man, Yilong Shao, 47, a Chinese language citizen, stays at massive, prosecutors stated. A public defender representing Mr. Pflugbeil, 58, didn’t reply to requests for remark late Tuesday.
Courtroom paperwork recognized the corporate whose secrets and techniques had been stolen solely as “a U.S.-based main producer of battery-powered electrical automobiles and battery vitality techniques.” That description and different particulars in court docket paperwork match Tesla.
Mr. Pflugbeil and Mr. Shao are each former workers of Hibar Methods, a Canadian firm that bought know-how for battery manufacturing that Tesla acquired in 2019. They’d entry to drawings and different paperwork that allowed others to repeat the manufacturing course of, in line with prosecutors.
After the sale of Hibar, the boys fashioned an organization that attempted to promote the agency’s know-how through advertisements on Google, posts on LinkedIn and a YouTube video, in line with court docket paperwork. They had been conscious the know-how was proprietary, prosecutors stated.
Undercover brokers met Mr. Shao at a commerce present in Las Vegas in September and expressed curiosity in shopping for the data, which Tesla had confirmed was secret. The brokers persuaded Mr. Pflugbeil to go to New York by telling him they needed to work out a deal.
The arrest demonstrates that the federal government “will prosecute those that interact in theft of commerce secrets and techniques that locations U.S. companies at a aggressive drawback, undermines innovation and creates a possible nationwide safety danger,” Breon Peace, the U.S. legal professional for the Japanese District of New York, stated in an announcement.
