North Logan man accused of industrial espionage

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://news.hjnews.com/news/article_d8c60e9c-1afe-11e1-9c4d-001cc4c002e0.html

By Amy Macavinta
The Herald Journal
November 29, 2011

A senior scientist of Frontier Scientific Inc. of North Logan has been 
accused of stealing proprietary information and sending it to a foreign 
company in what the FBI says is a rare case of industrial espionage.

According to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Salt 
Lake City on Nov. 10, Prabhu Mohapatra, 42, of North Logan, used his 
company computer to send the "recipes" for four different chemical 
compounds to Medchemblox in India. He was arrested Nov. 14 and is 
scheduled to be arraigned in federal court Dec. 8.

The Associated Press reported Tuesday that Mohapatra's public defender, 
Viviana Ramirez, said he will plead not guilty to the charge. If found 
guilty, he could spend up to 10 years in prison and be fined $250,000.

An investigation by the FBI showed Mohapatra's brother-in-law as one of 
the co-founders of Medchemblox - a business that was not yet registered 
but did have an existing website.

A special agent with the bureau said Mohapatra's activity was first 
observed by a co-worker, who on Oct. 25 saw him place the recipe of a 
chemical compound into a Word document, convert it into a PDF document 
and send it by attachment via his personal email account.

[...]


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