Former Chinese Coca-Cola employee arrested for stealing corporate secrets

A Chinese scientist who previously worked as a researcher for Coca-Cola in the US has been arrested on charges of stealing company secrets to set up a rival company in China with government sponsorship, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The employee, You Xiaorong, was indicted by a Tennessee court for allegedly appropriating chemical results related to soft drink containers – research that cost Coca-Cola almost $120 million.

This latest case of a Chinese-born worker attempting to steal trade secrets for use back home “exemplifies the rob, replicate and replace approach to technological development,” said John Demers of the US Justice Department’s national security division.

You also reportedly hoped to gain funding from the government-organised “Thousand Talents Plan,” the goal of which, Demers says, is “to solicit and reward the theft of our nation’s trade secrets and intellectual property.”