LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (AP) – Two agricultural scientists from China are accused of conspiring to take seeds from a research facility in Kansas and pass them to a Chinese delegation visiting the United States.
At a detention hearing today in Arkansas, a judge ordered one of the scientists, Wengui Yan, to remain in custody. The other scientist, Weiqiang Zhang, is set to have a hearing Tuesday in Kansas.
Yan and Zhang are charged with conspiracy to steal trade secrets.
Prosecutors say the pair arranged for a Chinese delegation to visit the United States this year and that customs agents later found stolen seeds in the delegation’s luggage as it was preparing to return to China.
At the hearing today, a federal judge ordered Yan, a naturalized U.S. citizen, to remain in custody after prosecutors argued that he could flee the country.
Yan’s lawyer, Chris Tarver, said Yan has lived in the U.S. for years and that authorities had seized the passport. Zhang’s attorney didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment today.
U.S. Magistrate Judge J. Thomas Ray acknowledged that Yan has strong ties to Arkansas, but added, “There is a strong inference from the complaint that Dr Yan and his co-defendant were involved in a conspiracy to try to get advanced agricultural technology into the hands of the delegation that they helped to invite into the country”.
Also this week, prosecutors in Iowa said six men from China including the CEO of a seed corn subsidiary of a Chinese conglomerate have been charged with conspiring to steal patented seed corn from two of America’s leading seed developers.
It wasn’t immediately clear if the cases in Kansas and Iowa are related. But seed developers spend millions of dollars a years to develop new varieties and carefully protect them against theft to maintain a competitive advantage.
Yan worked for the Department of Agriculture as a research geneticist at the Dale Bumpers National Rice Research Center in Arkansas, and Zhang worked as an agricultural seed breeder for a biopharmaceutical company that has a production facility in Junction City, Kansas, according to a court document.
