Three Chinese citizens engaged in industrial espionage while conducting federally funded research at NYU Langone Medical Center, authorities charged yesterday.
The men — one of whom was called an “innovator” in MRI technology” — allegedly funneled “nonpublic information” financed by taxpayers to a rival university in China and a company backed by the Chinese government.
One also snapped photos of MRI equipment designed by a research team, court papers allege.
Associate NYU professor of radiology Yudong Zhu and research engineer Xing Yang were busted yesterday. Postdoctoral fellow Ye Li was at large after flying to Hong Kong this month.
Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara likened the men to “foxes in the hen house,” saying they “deceived the university and others about their professional allegiances.”
The criminal complaint says Zhu, 44, was hired by NYU in 2008 to teach and research MRI technology.
In 2010, he helped NYU land a multimillion-dollar research grant from the National Institutes of Health and recruited Yang and Li, both 31, to help.
At the same time, Zhu was also secretly leading a similar project at the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology in China, the complaint says.
The men’s e-mails reveal discussions of “MRI equipment prototypes, experiments,” and cameras caught Yang taking photos of equipment, the feds say.
Langone spokesman Christopher Rucas said the center suspended the men and was “deeply disappointed” by the allegations.
Zhu and Yang were released on bond, with Zhu’s public defender, Robert Baum, saying, “Some of the government’s statements are not true.”