Silicon Valley Engineer Pleads Guilty to Stealing US Military Tech Secrets for China
Chenguang Gong, a 59-year-old engineer from Silicon Valley holding dual citizenship in the United States and China, has pleaded guilty to the theft of over 3,600 confidential documents containing critical military technology developments. Among the stolen materials were details about sensors designed to protect aircraft from heat-seeking missiles and specialized radiation-hardened cameras deployed in space to monitor missile launches and hypersonic objects.
According to investigative records, between late March and April 2023, Gong systematically transferred files from his work-issued laptop to personal storage devices, including a Verbatim USB stick and two Western Digital external drives. His activities intensified notably after April 5—the day he signed a contract with a competitor of his former employer, a company operating in the same field of infrared sensor technology. He later copied a portion of the files onto his personal computer.
FBI agents noted that Gong’s unauthorized data transfers may have begun as early as his relocation from China to the United States. His digital footprint reveals a sustained and deliberate interest in the technologies he worked on, alongside attempts to appropriate them for personal gain. He has since admitted to the theft of trade secrets.
Gong’s journey in America began in 1993 when he enrolled at Clemson University to study electrical engineering, later advancing to graduate studies at Stanford. In 2011, he acquired U.S. citizenship and began developing integrated circuits at a tech firm in Santa Clara.
By 2014, he had joined a military contractor in San Jose as a CMOS sensor design manager. Around this time, Gong began actively pursuing participation in China’s “talent recruitment programs”—state-backed initiatives aimed at repatriating skilled professionals and their technological expertise.
Such programs, established in China during the 1990s, offer generous state funding. Successful candidates receive up to $150,000 in prize money and an additional $750,000 for scientific research. Between 2014 and 2022, Gong repeatedly applied to these programs, submitting projects identical to the technologies he worked on in the U.S. In one instance, he reached the semifinal stage by presenting night vision sensor designs—complete with images of equipment taken directly from his workplace. For his participation, he received approximately $2,800.
On January 30, 2023, Gong transitioned to a new employer and promptly went on leave, citing a need to care for ill parents in China. However, he never left the U.S. Instead, by March, he had resumed work and began aggressively copying documentation, including schematics for integrated circuits designed to track missile launches and other defense objectives. On March 20, he submitted his resignation, claiming he felt underqualified and that the company deserved a more capable engineer.
The victimized firm estimates the stolen intellectual property could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Particularly alarming is the assessment that, should these materials fall into the hands of foreign governments, they could pose a significant threat to U.S. national security.
After Gong’s departure in April to a rival company, his former employer’s cybersecurity team conducted an internal audit. The review uncovered suspicious activity, prompting a formal complaint to the FBI. Covert surveillance followed, during which investigators seized storage devices and uncovered extensive evidence corroborating the scale of the theft.
Gong was arrested in February of this year. This week, he formally entered a guilty plea. He now faces up to 10 years in prison for the theft of trade secrets.
This prolonged act of espionage has cast a spotlight on the vulnerability of intellectual property and demonstrated how a single individual, operating under the guise of routine corporate engineering, can jeopardize national interests.