South Korean police have arrested two former Samsung Electronics officials on suspicion of stealing technologies worth more than 4.3 trillion won (US$3.2 billion) to build a copycat chip-making plant in China.
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The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency on Tuesday described how the pair had collaborated with local Chinese officials to build a semiconductor facility. One of the two, identified as a 66-year-old surnamed Choi, recruited South Korean chip experts and leaked Samsung memory technologies via a joint venture, the police said in a statement.
They did not offer time frames, or identify the Chinese location. But some of the details mirrored those from a case that first came to light in 2023, as tensions escalated between Beijing and Washington over sanctions aimed at China’s chip sector. In that instance, a former Samsung executive was arrested for allegedly stealing blueprints to try and replicate an entire fabrication plant in China.
South Korea, as the world’s foremost producer of memory chips, is a key ally of Washington in efforts to contain Beijing’s technological ambitions.
On Tuesday, Seoul police described what it called a serious security violation perpetrated through a Chinese joint venture, Chengdu Gaozhen. Choi served as the venture’s chief and was aided by a plant designer surnamed Oh, police said in their statement.