49-year-old Chunlai Yang is accused of planning to steal proprietary software from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange to sell to a Chinese startup that he ran. But he got caught, like the thievin' sucka that he is:
A naturalised American born in China, Yang joined CME eleven years ago. The exchange began to monitor his computer activity after he allegedly began transferring thousands of files, some onto USB memory sticks.It doesn't sound like he was very discreet about his stealing ways. If found guilty, Yang faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. More here: Ex-CME Programmer to Plead Not Guilty in Code-Theft Case.
Yang was emailing three individuals in China, sometimes with valuable source code, according to prosecutors. One of his contacts worked for the Zhangiagang Free Trade Zone. Two worked with Yang to run the East China Technology Innovation Park Company, a firm that allegedly planned to establish a futures exchange in China that would sell trading software.
After yesterday's court hearing, the FBI said in a statement: "Many of the downloaded files were critical to the operation of the CME Group and are considered proprietary in nature and contain protected source code.
"If the source code were to be released to competitors, clients or anyone else in the financial industry, it could cause great economic damage."