Chinese Man Sentenced To 2 Years Jail For Stealing U.S. Underwater Drones Tech
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A Communist China's businessman was sent for two years to prison after he admitted to the illegal export of marine tech with uses in anti-submarine warfare from the United States to the Beijing regime's military university.
Shuren Qin, who founded a company that sold oceanographic instruments, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Denise Casper in Boston after admitting he illegally exported devices called hydrophones that can be used to monitor sound underwater.
Prosecutors had sought seven and half years in prison for Qin, who must also pay a $20,000 fine. His guilty plea was conditional, allowing him to appeal a ruling by Casper to not suppress the evidence against him.
The marine biologist was charged in 2018 amid rising U.S. concerns about China’s national security threat, a continued focus of the Biden administration. Qin, 45, had already served three months in jail after his arrest.
Defense lawyers said he founded LinkOcean Technologies Ltd in China in 2005 to provide oceanographic instruments to scientists, and immigrated to the United States with his family in 2014 as a permanent resident.
Prosecutors said Qin from 2015 to 2016 exported hydrophones to Northwestern Polytechnical University, a Chinese military research institute involved in underwater drone projects, by deceiving a U.S. supplier and without obtaining export licenses.