A former Lansheng Chinese engineer has been charged by Germany with stealing trade secrets

German prosecutors have filed criminal charges against a former Chinese employee of Lanxes AG, a chemical company, on suspicion of stealing trade secrets and copying a former employer's chemical reactor in China.
reported on November 15th that the case highlighted concerns between German officials and business executives about industrial espionage. Although German media have previously reported that German manufacturers operating in China have found that local Chinese employees secretly work for German competitors who make imitation products, allegations of data theft by other companies in Germany are rare .
prosecutor in Cologne, Germany, who is in charge of the case, said they filed criminal charges against a German engineer of Chinese descent in June 2018 after Lansheng reported the case to the police two years ago.
german prosecutors said the 48-year-old Chinese engineer was fired after the group discovered data stolen from a chemical reactor. The engineer sent trade secrets of how to build and operate chemical reactors to another German-Chinese by e-mail, using Chinese, and tried to build chemical reactors and produce products in China.
the 40-year-old, who received the emails, were also criminally charged, the prosecutor added.
face up to four years in prison if convicted. A third accomplice was also charged, but prosecutors gave no further details.
and German prosecutors did not disclose the identity of the accused. Lansheng Produces Additives, Pesticide Ingredients, Building Pigments and Synthetic Plastics, with sales of EUR 10 billion in 2017, of which EUR 2.8 billion comes from sales in Asia.