Ex-Samsung exec charged with stealing trade secrets to create copycat chip factory in China

South Korean prosecutors have arrested and indicted a former executive of Samsung Electronics suspected of stealing trade secrets while attempting to establish a copycat computer chip plant in China. The Suwon District Prosecutors' Office said Monday that the unnamed 65-year-old unlawfully obtained Samsung's factory blueprints and clean-room designs from 2018 and 2019 while trying, unsuccessfully, to replicate a chip factory in the Chinese city of Xi'an, near where Samsung operates a plant. The technology allegedly stolen by the man's China-based company would have been worth at least 300 billion won ($233 million) for Samsung, prosecutors said.