The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa says a woman from China has been arrested and accused of trying to steal the secrets to hybrid corn being raised in Iowa and Illinois.
Forty-two-year-old Mo Yun has been charged with conspiracy to steal trade secrets. Her brother, who is also a Chinese national, was arrested in December of 2013 in the same case. Her husband is the CEO of a Chinese conglomerate with a seed corn subsidiary.
Security staff from DuPont Pioneer alerted the FBI after they noticed suspicious activity in their fields. The Chinese siblings are accused of trying to steal the trade secrets of several U.S. based seed manufacturing companies. An F-B-I agent who worked on the case says the theft of intellectual property is the agency’s “number two priority” — behind it’s top priority of preventing terrorism.
