Chicago (IL) – A woman accused of stealing Motorola corporate secrets denies that she is a spy.  In a federal indictment, former Motorola software engineer Huanjuan Jin is accused of copying hundreds of documents from Motorola’s internal servers and then trying to board a plane to China.  She claims that her supervisor overloaded her with work and that she was merely taking the documents to keep up, but prosecutors say her motives were much more sinister.

Two years ago, Jin took a medical leave of absence from Motorola claiming that she had a life-threatening disease.  She flew to China where authorities allege that she met with representatives of a Chinese computer company.  Apparently she agreed to steal Motorola secrets and the prosecutors say she downloaded more than 600 documents from Motorola’s servers when she got back – those are some real secure servers you got there Motorola.  Jin then copied everything to her laptop, portable hard drives and USB flash sticks and headed to O’Hare airport with a one-way ticket to Beijing.

Jin was caught after Customs agents found all the drives and $30,000 in cash (Jin had only declared $10,000) after a 'routine check'.  Most likely the declaration of $10,000 and the one-way ticket came up as red flags for the officers and prompted the secondary inspection, at least we can hope right?

In the past year, China has been accused of organizing an extensive hacking campaign against the United States and other countries.  China recently denied such charges by saying that it wasn’t skill enough, some US government officials think otherwise.  Earlier in the month, US Representatives Frank Wolf and Chris Smith accused China of hacking into congressional computers and in May, government officials say the Commerce Secretary’s laptop may have been cloned when he visited China for trade talks.

Americans heading to China for this summer’s Olympics are advised to be especially careful with their laptops and phones.  Larry Wortzel, chairman of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, recently said, “There is a high likelihood – virtually 100% - that if an individual is of security, political, or business interest to Chinese … security services or high technology industries, their electronics can and will be tampered with or penetrated.”

Motorola claims the information contained in the documents are valued at $600,000.  Sounds like they are valuing the stuff at $1000 a document.

An ABC 7 reporter caught up to Jin and asked her a few questions.  You can judge for yourself whether she is telling the truth or lying.

ABC 7 Video

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