Yu was a Product Engineer and ten-year veteran of U.S. automaker Ford Motor Company who admitted to copying around 4,000 confidential Ford documents to an external hard drive and passing them to Beijing Automotive Company with whom he hadtaken a job. The design documents have been valued at around $50 million. According to details included in a plea agreement, Yu obtained documents including designs for components such as an Engine/Transmission Mounting Subsystem, Electrical Distribution system, Electric Power Supply, Electrical Subsystem and Generic Body Module before informing Ford of his decision to take a position with Bejing Automotive. He left the country with the documents in December, 2006, eventually e-mailing his supervisor at Ford from China to inform him of his decision to leave Ford and take a new position with a competitor. He was taken into custody by the FBI in October, 2009, after stopping over in Chicago on a return trip to China. An analysis of the company-issued laptop computer Yu carried at the time of his arrest included copies of 41 Ford system design specification documents. Yu faces up to six years in prison and a fine of $150,000 when he is sentenced.
(Photos via toprankonlinemarketing Flickr photostream / United States Department of Justice)
