Bill Essayli, the United States District Attorney for the Central District of California, is not just focusing on criminal illegals in Southern California. His office has also initiated an investigation into a Manchurian candidate: a dual citizen of China and the U.S. accused of being deeply involved in the theft of trade secrets related to military technology. The findings are alarming in their magnitude.

This press release from the office of @USAttyEssayli is quite dramatic. It details the prosecution of a dual U.S./Chinese citizen in Southern California who stole classified trade technology intended for U.S. military use to detect nuclear missile launches, moving over 3,600 files onto USB devices. pic.twitter.com/GeKn1DafFT

— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) July 21, 2025

As reported by the Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs, on Monday, Chenguang Gong, a dual citizen of the U.S. and China, admitted guilt to a count of trade secret theft. In 2023, Gong was employed by a research and development firm in the Los Angeles area for application-specific integrated circuit design. Between March 30 and April 26, 2023, he transferred thousands of files from his work laptop onto three USB drives. Notably, almost 1,800 of those files were transferred after Gong accepted employment with a competing company.

Gong was fired from the victim company on April 26, 2023.

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.

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.