When Wei Sun, a 48-year-old engineer at Raytheon Missile Systems, left for an overseas trip last year, he told the company he planned to bring his company-issued HP EliteBook 840 laptop along.
Sun, a Chinese-born American citizen, had been working at Raytheon, the fourth-largest US defense contractor, for a decade.
He held a secret-level security clearance and worked on highly sensitive missile programs used by the US military.
Sun had access to sensitive missile defense technology.
But inconsistent stories about his itinerary led Sun to confess that he traveled to China with the laptop.
The country’s security services have already compromised dozens of crucial US weapons systems, such as the Army’s Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) ballistic missile defense system, and the Aegis ballistic missile defense system used by the Navy.
It has also been converted into a ground-based air defense system, which may have been Sun’s focus, since prosecutors describe his work as centered on ballistic missile defense. »