In a joint press event today, the U.S. Department of Justice revealed that it is pursuing criminal charges against Chinese mobile giant Huawei. Following a story from The Wall Street Journal earlier this month, TechCrunch previously reported that the indictments were set to be unsealed soon.
The indictments grew out of a civil suit dating all the way back to 2014 in which T-Mobile sued Huawei for stealing trade secrets related to a robotic phone-testing device known as “Tappy.” A grand jury in Seattle has charged Huawei, Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou and Huawei subsidiary Skycom with conspiracy to steal trade secrets, attempted theft of trade secrets, seven counts of wire fraud, and one count of obstruction of justice for the company’s alleged attempts to move potential witnesses back to China.
“As I told Chinese officials in August, China must hold its citizens and Chinese companies accountable for complying with the law,” Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker said. In a press conference, Whitaker announced that two criminal cases would proceed: one out of Seattle and one from a grand jury in New York.
Tensions between the U.S. and China have escalated considerably over the last year, with U.S. agencies and lawmakers increasingly cautioning that Huawei poses a major security threat, though the government has yet to make specific intelligence that would underscore its warnings public.
The absence of specific proof points to the fact that the U.S. may be wary of allowing China to participate in building out the infrastructure for 5G mobile networks to prevent future spying — even if the U.S. lacks proof that China is leveraging its hardware for spying against the U.S. government’s interests now.
“To the detriment of American ingenuity, Huawei continually disregarded the laws of the United States in the hopes of gaining an unfair economic advantage,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in the announcement. “As the volume of these charges prove, the FBI will not tolerate corrupt businesses that violate the laws that allow American companies and the United States to thrive.”