WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) — Federal prosecutors in New York have boosted charges against an ex-IBM Corp. software developer, charging him with economic espionage.
They now say Xu Jiaqiang (shoo jee-ah-chahng) stole computer code to benefit the National Health and Planning Commission of the People's Republic of China. The new allegations were contained in a re-written indictment announced Tuesday.
Xu was first arrested last December in White Plains on a theft-of-trade-secrets charge and pleaded not guilty. He will be arraigned Thursday on the new charges.
IBM has declined to comment on the case.
The indictment accuses Xu of stealing and converting the company's source code for a piece of proprietary software for his own use. It says he then planned to use it to help the Chinese agency between November 2014 and last December.
