A professor at the University of Arkansas who received millions of dollars in research grants, including $ 500,000 from NASA, was arrested Friday and charged with wire fraud, according to a leaked criminal affidavit Monday.
63 years Simon Saw-Teong Ang He is the director of the school's High-Density Electronics Center, which has received funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Department of Energy (DOE), the Department of Defense (DOD) and NASA. . Since 2013, Ang has been the principal investigator or co-investigator for grants funded by the United States government totaling more than $ 5 million, according to the Washington ExaminerJerry Dunleavy.
According to the FBI, Ang did not reveal that he was paid by a Chinese university and Chinese companies in violation of university policy. He is accused of making false statements without revealing his close ties to China as a member of the "Thousand Talents Scholars" program.
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"Ang intentionally made false material statements to the University of Arkansas and NASA causing the transmission to be received and received in the form of grant applications and grant funds that you otherwise could not have received, "FBI Special Agent Jonathan Willett wrote in the report. Affidavit.
"The complaint accuses Ang had close ties to the Chinese government and Chinese companies, and has not disclosed these links when necessary to receive funding from NASA, "said the Justice Department." These materially false representations at NASA and the University of Arkansas resulted in the sending and receiving of numerous cables which facilitated Ang's scheme for defrauding"
The FBI was informed of Ang's activities after a hard drive became lost and found one from the university. In an attempt to determine who it belonged to, a staff member discovered an email exchange between the professor and a visiting researcher from Xidian University in Xi'an, China in a file clearly labeled "Ang_Confidential.pdf ".
In an email dated September 15, 2018, Ang writes:
"Expensive (INVESTIGATOR 1), I want you to understand that I will do my best to support your stay here in Arkansas, there have been things that have been very difficult for me recently due to the political climate. You can search the Chiense site for what the United States will do to A thousand talented scholars. Few people here know that I am one of them, but if it leaks, my work here will have serious problems.. I have to be very careful, otherwise I could be unemployed at this university. I hope you understand my deep concerns … Please keep it a secret as I trust you. "
In November, the Senate Standing Subcommittee on Investigations, chaired by Senator Rob Portman (R-OH), released a 109-page bipartisan report which concluded that foreign nations "seek to exploit the openness of the United States to promote their own national interests", according to the report, the most ambitious "was China". Examiner
. According to the report, Chinese academics involved in its so-called "Thousand Talents" program exploit access to American research laboratories. USA.
Ang applied for and received a grant from NASA for a November 2016 proposal entitled "Weatherproof electronic packaging with a capacity of 500 ° Celsius for the exploration of extreme environments". Government funding was $ 512,904 between 2017 and 2020, and It succeeded despite NASA's "funding constraint on China". The NASA recruiting officer who supervises The $ 500,000 grant said that Ang would never have been awarded if they had known of its extensive relationships with China. –Washington Examiner
According to the FBI, Ang made reveal their participation in the Thousand Talents Scholars in 2014, but not their participation in other programs from 2012 to 2018, which the FBI has shown that "their intention to run a program disappoints them" University of Arkansas and NASA "as he" was obviously aware of the obligation to disclose these conflicts of interest and deliberately concealed from them all of these conflicts of interest ".
In addition to his participation in the Thousand Talents program, Ang hid his role at Binzhou Maotong Electronic Technology Company from 2011 to 2018 while acting as principal investigator for a research project related to research on hydrogen fuel cells. He also did not mention that he was the CTO of Binzhou Gande Electronic Technology from 2011 to 2018, as well as his stake in Jiangsu Xuanzhi New Materials and Technology Company, which he claimed to hold between 7 and 9% in an email.
The Ministry of Justice Initiative in ChinaLaunched in 2018, it aims to combat both the evil Chinese influence (ranging from cyber espionage to theft of technology) and its Thousand Talents program, which aims to steal research. The ministry indicted Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei in a global plan to combat organized crime at the beginning of this year.
Friday, Dr. Xiao-Jiang Li, a former professor at Emory University and a participant in the Thousand Chinese Talent Program, pleaded guilty
file false tax returns after working abroad at Chinese universities and did not report any of his foreign income on federal tax returns.The Ministry of Education website on the Foreign Donations and Contracts Report watch $ 15.76 billion in foreign funds on American campuses. USA Between 2014 and 2019, including 1.17 billion dollars from China. Both Department of Education and Justice Department prosecutors sued the universities for hidden your foreign funding –Washington Examiner
Read the complaint below: