Mario Bautista
At the beginning of the month, the industrial espionage case involving ex-Samsung executive Choi Jinseog re-emerged as the Seoul Central District Court issued a warrant to detain Choi after deeming him a flight risk.
The case moved forward, and according to newer reports, it appears to have culminated with the arrest of Mr. Choi and another former senior researcher at Samsung.
Korean authorities, cited by the local media, said, “This case has shaken the foundation of economic security […], leading to a potential weakening of national competitiveness.”
A leak worth roughly $3.26 billion
Choi Jinseog is an ex-Samsung and SK Hynix executive who did crucial work developing DRAM memory chips for Samsung a couple of decades ago. He also worked on developing Samsung Foundry wafer technologies and was awarded internally for many of his efforts. He left Samsung in 2001 and joined SK Hynix, but things started going badly many more years later.
In 2020, Mr. Choi collaborated with a local Chinese government to found his semiconductor company, Chengdu Gaozhen. However, last year, Mr. Choi’s plans came to a grinding halt as he was accused of industrial espionage after stealing technologies and factory plans from Samsung.
He was planning to use the stolen information to build his semiconductor facility in China with help from the local government. And last year, it was discovered that Foxconn may have been in the cards to become one of Mr. Choi’s key clients. Foxconn denied it had anything to do with the trade leaks.
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The Korean media states that another ex-Samsung senior researcher, named Oh, was crucial to the nefarious plan. Mr. Oh and other South Korean semiconductor experts were recruited by Choi to leak Samsung’s core memory semiconductor technologies and factory plans.
Both Choi and Oh were arrested last week, as per the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency’s Industrial Technology Security Investigation Unit. Other employees who moved from Samsung and other domestic companies to Chengdu Gaozhen are also under investigation to determine whether they were involved with Choi’s plan to leak trade secrets.
The economic value of the leaked information, particularly everything that had to do with the 20nm manufacturing process, is estimated to be roughly 4.3 trillion won ($3.26 billion).
