Former Intel Engineer Indicted For Theft Of $1 Billion In Trade Secrets

Biswamohan Pani, 33, of Massachusetts, was idicted in federal court Wednesday on one count of theft of trade secrets and four counts of wire fraud, for allegedly downloading sensitive trade secrets from Intel Corp. Pani had recently resigned from Intel when he downloaded more than a dozen confidential documents from the company's computer system last June, according to the criminal complaint. He was still technically an employee of Intel and was being paid for his unused vacation time when the improper downloads ocurred last June. Pani also still had access to Intel's computer system but had taken a job from Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., contrary to what he told company officials about seeking a job with a hedge fund firm. AMD has said that Pani is no longer employed by them and prosecutors said that AMD had no knowledge and they did not benefit from Pani's actions. He faces up to 10 years in prison for the trade secret charge and up to 20 years for each wire fraud charge, plus a fine of $250,000 for each count, if convicted. He remains free on $100,000 bail.

Read the story here, here and here.

Always take away access to the company computers when employees leave. Pay a lump sum final check instead of keeping people on. This probably would have avoided Pani's activities here.