Chinese spy in the United States pleads guilty: Stole blueprints for super-secret missile sensors

A major scandal in the world of high technology and national security: a citizen of the United States and China, Chengguan Gong (59 years old), officially pleaded guilty to espionage in favor of China. In fact, he stole what is worth billions — the smart brains of the American missile defense system.

That's how it was. Gong worked as an engineer for some secret scientific company in Los Angeles (the name is not called, but it is clear that it is serious). And last year, he simply collected more than 3,600 files — an entire digital library of secrets — and transferred them to his personal flash drives and external drives. And these are not just any notes: the files were clearly marked as strictly confidential, and their total value is estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars.

What exactly did he steal? The most advanced developments in infrared sensors that protect the United States:

* Missile detection systems in space — these sensors should capture the very moment of launching nuclear missiles and track their flight, including ultrafast hypersonic ones.

* Aircraft protection systems — sensors that sense when heat—seeking missiles are aimed at a military aircraft (the ones that "see" the engine heat), and allow you to turn on protection - for example, to launch a false target or suppress the missile signal.

* The development of the "next generation" — technologies that will be able to detect even very  inconspicuous targets  that previously could have escaped the radar.

* Mounting and cooling designs — even how these super-sensitive sensors are physically installed and cooled also ended up in the package.

All this stuff was found at Goon's house in Southern California. The US Department of Justice emphasizes that it acted to help China develop its own military technology. This is not just a theft of intellectual property, it is a direct interference in the strategic defense power of the United States. The trial continues, and such a confession of guilt is usually followed by a serious sentence. History is a classic example of how one person with access to secrets can cause enormous damage.