UCLA professor faces 219-year prison sentence for sending missile data to China

Yi-Chi Shih, a  professor in electrical engineering and adjunct professor at UCLA, was found guilty last month by a Los Angeles jury of smuggling data chips with military applications to China.

He was convicted on 18 counts, including making an illegal export and multiple fraud charges.

Shih and another Chinese defendant, Kiet Ahn Mai, worked together to defraud an American semiconductor chip manufacturer. According to prosecutors, Mai posed as a potential customer to obtain chip designs from the unnamed company, then illegally sent the products to China.

In a statement, prosecutors said the chips were sent to a Chinese company where Shih was president. He paid for the scheme through a US-based bank account, which was funded through another company based in China.

The chips stolen in the scheme “are used in missiles, missile guidance systems, fighter jets, electronic warfare, electronic warfare countermeasures and radar applications,” according to the statement.

Shih was hoping the state of California would offer him sanctuary in the case, but that was not the case. The spy is going to for a long time, if not the rest of his life.

Industrial espionage is a key point of dispute between the US and China, an issue that has recently intensified as trade negotiations heat up between the two countries. In the past, the US has accused prominent Chinese companies, including Huawei, of stealing technology from American businesses.

Shih’s sentence will be determined at a later date, but it doesn't look good for him.

The UCLA electrical engineering program will miss Shih greatly. "All this over a bag of chips," a school spokesperson said.


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