Former Google Engineer Convicted on Economic Espionage and Trade Secret Theft Charges
CorporateEspionageIntellectualPropertyTheftArtificialIntelligenceNationalSecurity
A former Google engineer, Linwei Ding (also known as Leon Ding), 38, has been convicted by a U.S. federal jury on seven counts of economic espionage and seven counts of trade secret theft. He is accused of exfiltrating over 2,000 confidential documents from Google, related to AI technologies, with the intent to establish a startup in China. The announcement was made by the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) on Thursday, January 2, 2026. No sentencing date or additional technical details have been provided.