United States District Attorney for the Central District of California Bill Essayli is not only targeting criminal illegals in Southern California. His office also mounted an investigation into a Manchurian candidate: a dual Chinese-U.S. citizen who is deeply embroiled in theft of military technology trade secrets. The results are terrifying in their scope.
It’s a long read, but this is a WILD press release from @USAttyEssayli office re: the prosecution of a dual US/Chinese citizen in SoCal who stole trade secret technology developed for use by the U.S. military to detect nuclear missile launches, transferring 3,600+ files to USBs. pic.twitter.com/GeKn1DafFT
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) July 21, 2025
According to a Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs press release, on Monday, Chenguang Gong, a dual citizen of the United States and China, pleaded guilty to one count of theft of trade secrets. Gong was hired by a Los Angeles-area research and development company in 2023 to do application-specific integrated circuit design. From March 30 to April 26, 2023, Gong transferred thousands of files from his work laptop to three USB drives. Gong transferred almost 1,800 of those files after accepting a position with a rival company.
Gong was fired from the victim company on April 26, 2023.
A Santa Clara County man and former engineer at a Southern California company pleaded guilty today to stealing trade secret technologies developed for use by the U.S. government to detect nuclear missile launches, track ballistic and hypersonic missiles, and to allow U.S. fighter planes to detect and evade heat-seeking missiles.
Not just any run-of-the-mill company trade secrets — proprietary military technology. Gong's work was related to the development and design of a readout integrated circuit for the purpose of detecting missile launches and tracking ballistic and hypersonic missiles from space. Gong also cribbed the blueprints for a readout integrated circuit that would allow aircraft to recognize and track incoming threats in low visibility environments.
The files Gong transferred include blueprints for sophisticated infrared sensors designed for use in space-based systems to detect nuclear missile launches and track ballistic and hypersonic missiles, as well as blueprints for sensors designed to enable U.S. military aircraft to detect incoming heat-seeking missiles and take countermeasures, including by jamming the missiles’ infrared tracking ability. Some of these files were later found on storage devices seized from Gong’s temporary residence in Thousand Oaks.
Gong also transferred files containing trade secrets relating to the development of “next generation” sensors capable of detecting low observable targets while demonstrating increased survivability in space, as well as the blueprints for the mechanical assemblies used to house and cryogenically cool the victim company’s sensors. This information was among the victim company’s most important trade secrets that are worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Many of the files had been marked “[VICTIM COMPANY] PROPRIETARY,” “FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY,” “PROPRIETARY INFORMATION,” and “EXPORT CONTROLLED.”
Further investigation showed that this was not Gong's first rodeo. For seven years (between 2014 and 2022), Gong worked at several other technology companies in the U.S. while also applying for "Talent Programs" sponsored by the People's Republic of China. The talent programs were created to locate individuals with particular skills, abilities, and knowledge on advanced sciences and technologies in order to help transform the PRC's economy and military might. Gong stole the concepts from these companies, and in his applications to these PRC talent programs, claimed them as his own designs.
In 2014, while employed at a U.S. information technology company headquartered in Dallas, Gong sent a business proposal to a contact at a high-tech research institute in China focused on both military and civilian products. In his proposal, translated from Chinese, Gong described a plan to produce high-performance analog-to-digital converters like those produced by his employer. In another Talent Program application from September 2020, Gong proposed to develop “low light/night vision” image sensors for use in military night vision goggles and civilian applications. Gong’s proposal included a video presentation that contained the model number of a sensor developed by an international defense, aerospace, and security company where Gong worked from 2015 to 2019.
But it gets even more perverse. Gong traveled to China on multiple occasions in his quest for PRC talent program funding.
Gong travelled to China several times to seek Talent Program funding in order to develop sophisticated analog-to-digital converters. In his Talent Program applications, Gong underscored that the high-performance analog-to-digital converters he proposed to develop in China had military applications, explaining that they “directly determine the accuracy and range of radar systems” and that “[m]issile navigation systems also often use radar front-end systems.” In a 2019 email, translated from Chinese, Gong remarked that he “took a risk” by traveling to China to participate in the Talent Programs “because [he] worked for…an American military industry company” and thought he could “do something” to contribute to China’s “high-end military integrated circuits.”
According to Gong's plea agreement, the intended economic loss from this criminal conduct exceeds $3.5 million. However, this is only quantified for the company from which Gong was fired in 2023. What of the almost 10 years of stolen time, technology, and ingenuity from those other organizations for whom Gong worked between 2014 and 2022? This also begs the question: How much has the defense infrastructure for which he was intimately involved been compromised, and who were the people who were no doubt blamed and probably fired for Gong's duplicity and theft?
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is focused on reclaiming American farmland that has been purchased by the Chinese, and the Department of Defense is looking at revoking clearances for Chinese engineers who do software maintenance on our defense systems(!) One has to wonder how many other Chenguang Gongs are embedded across the U.S. The work of rooting out Chinese infiltration and corruption in our institutions has become a chore of finding embedded needles in multiple haystacks.
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As a dual citizen, Gong's actions appear to be treasonous. Yet, after pleading guilty, he was released on $1.74 million bond while awaiting sentencing scheduled for September 29. Was Gong's passport revoked? He has secretly traveled to China before, so with almost two months until sentencing for his crimes, what is preventing him from fleeing the country?
Gong faces up to 10 years in prison, so add the cost of feeding and housing him to the damages he has caused these companies and the country.
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