Wei Sun, a 49-year-old Chinese-American engineer, was sentenced to 38 months in prison by the U.S. Department of Justice on Wednesday (November 18). Sun previously pleaded guilty to a felony charge of violating the Arms Export Control Act (AECA).
Sun, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in China, worked for 10 years at Raytheon, the fourth largest U.S. defense contractor, as an electrical engineer in the Raytheon Missile and Defense Division. Raytheon develops and manufactures missile systems for use by the U.S. military.
During his employment with Raytheon, Wei Sun had access to information directly related to defense-related technologies. Some of this defense technology information was defined as “defense articles” that were controlled and prohibited from being exported without a license under the Arms Export Control Act and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR).
Sun Wei traveled from the United States to China on a personal trip from December 2018 to January 2019. During that trip, Sun took with him a company computer that stored a large amount of confidential data.
Sun Wei was arrested in February 2020. He is accused of knowingly exporting the information to China without an export license, in violation of relevant prohibitions and training requirements.
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