is a significant and growing threat to our country’s economic health and security.and so is the threat from corporate insiders willing to carry it out.Īnd because we’re now in the digital age, insiders-who not so many years ago had to photocopy and smuggle mountains of documents out of their offices-can now share documents via e-mail or download them electronically on easy-to-hide portable devices.

In 2011, the company reported that its TiO2 trade secrets had been stolen.Īmong the individuals charged in the case? Two long-time DuPont employees…one of whom pled guilty in fairly short order.įoreign economic espionage against the U.S. DuPont, a company based in Wilmington, Delaware, invented the chloride-route process for manufacturing TiO2 and invested heavily in research and development to improve the process over the years. TiO2 is a commercially valuable white pigment used to color paints, plastics, and paper. This past February, five individuals and five companies were charged with economic espionage and theft of trade secrets in connection with their roles in a long-running effort to obtain information for the benefit of companies controlled by the government of the People’s Republic of China.Īccording to the superseding indictment, the PRC government was after information on chloride-route titanium dioxide (TiO2) production capabilities.

How to identify a spy agent