Newsweek
Max Kutner
Newsweek•April 5, 2018
[excerpt]
https://www.yahoo.com/news/chinese-scientist-stole-american-rice-184655010.htmlA scientist from China has been sentenced to 10 years in prison in the United States for stealing seeds of genetically modified American rice, the Department of Justice announced Wednesday.
The Chinese scientist, Weiqiang Zhang, 51, was a legal permanent resident living in Manhattan, Kansas. He was working as a rice breeder at Ventria Bioscience, a biopharmaceutical company that creates genetically modified rice. He stole hundreds of rice seeds from the company that had cost millions of dollars and taken years of research to develop, according to the Justice Department. He kept the seeds in his home.
Then in 2013, United States Customs and Border Protection agents found the seeds in luggage belonging to researchers who visited Zhang from China. They were on their way back to China with the seeds.
