Advertisement

If you have an ACS member number, please enter it here so we can link this account to your membership. (optional)

ACS values your privacy. By submitting your information, you are gaining access to C&EN and subscribing to our weekly newsletter. We use the information you provide to make your reading experience better, and we will never sell your data to third party members.

ENJOY UNLIMITED ACCES TO C&EN

Business

Seven Charged In Corn Seed Heist

Trade Secrets: DuPont, Monsanto are targets of Chinese competitor

by Marc S. Reisch
July 14, 2014 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 92, Issue 28

[+]Enlarge
Credit: Shutterstock
Defendants are charged with pilfering corn seed from fields in Iowa and Illinois.
Corn field.
Credit: Shutterstock
Defendants are charged with pilfering corn seed from fields in Iowa and Illinois.

A Des Moines, Iowa, federal grand jury has indicted seven Chinese nationals for stealing hybrid corn seed technology from DuPont and Monsanto test fields in Iowa and Illinois.

The indictment accuses the group of conspiring to steal and send back to China parent seed lines containing gene-modified and plant-bred traits such as resistance to disease, pests, and drought. All seven worked on behalf of Dabeinong Technology Group, a Beijing-based agricultural conglomerate founded in 1993.

Among those arrested and indicted is Mo Yun, the wife of Dabeinong founder Shao Genhuo, says the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa. According to Forbes magazine, Shao has a net worth of $1.3 billion. The indictment accuses Mo of being the brains behind the operation.

The FBI began tracking the group in May 2011 following an alert from DuPont. A company security guard, posted at a cornfield in Iowa, had reported observing Mo Hailong, Mo Yun’s brother and Dabeinong’s director of international business, on his knees digging up recently planted corn seed.

The FBI subsequently tracked Mo Hailong and others over the next year and a half as the group collected corn seed and mature ears of parent corn from research fields operated by DuPont, Monsanto, and the seed company AgReliant Genetics.

To get the seed back to China, the government says, one defendant tucked the stolen kernels into Orville Redenbacher microwave popcorn boxes packed into his luggage. A second defendant traveling back to China tried to conceal the seed corn in Pop Weaver boxes.

Each of the defendants faces a prison term of up to 10 years and a fine of $250,000, according to a government spokesman.

For DuPont, the case is the latest in a string of intellectual property theft experiences. In 2012, federal prosecutors charged five people with stealing DuPont’s titanium dioxide technology at the behest of the Chinese government. In 2009, DuPont accused South Korea’s Kolon Industries with stealing trade secrets for making Kevlar aramid fiber. It has been fighting Kolon in court since then.

Advertisement

Article:

This article has been sent to the following recipient:

0 /1 FREE ARTICLES LEFT THIS MONTH Remaining
Chemistry matters. Join us to get the news you need.