CINCINNATI — Federal prosecutors in Cincinnati recommend a 300-month prison sentence for the Chinese spy convicted last year of conspiring to steal GE Aviation corporate trade secrets, according to a sentencing memorandum filed Tuesday.
Yanjun Xu was a Deputy Division Director in China's Ministry of State Security, according to prosecutors.
According to the United States Attorney's Office, Xu is the first Chinese spy extradited to the U.S.
The WCPO 9 I-Team has reported extensively on the spy case, including a detailed look at how federal agents caught Xu and coverage of Xu's trial.
The case is based in Cincinnati because local FBI agents initiated and developed the investigation with cooperation from GE Aviation, which is located in Evendale.
One of GE's engineers had been Xu's target and helped the FBI bring Xu to Belgium in April 2018 for what he believed was a meeting with the engineer, according to court records. Instead, police arrested Xu and held him in a Belgium jail for six months until he was extradited to the U.S. in Oct. 2018.
Court records show Xu has been held in jails or prison for the last 4 1/2 years.
"Xu was promoted within the MSS to a Deputy Division Director with managerial responsibility over both other MSS spies and civilian intelligence assets," Asst. U.S. Attorney Timothy Mangan wrote in the government's sentencing memo. "In that role, he coordinated sophisticated and significant intelligence operations. He directed assets and recruited co-opted employees. He supervised and directed fellow spies at the MSS."
Jeanne Cors, one of Xu's defense attorneys, is asking for a sentence of "time served," according to Cors' sentencing memo also filed on Tuesday.
"It hardly seems wise to start prosecuting, and worse, imprisoning for decades, alleged foreign intelligence officers for doing their jobs," Cors wrote in Xu's sentencing memo. "Mr. Xu was prosecuted and tried, but now to use his sentence as America’s retribution for China’s efforts to steal proprietary information is short sighted and serves neither this country’s national nor even its entrepreneurs’ greatest interests."
Xu is scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 15 in U.S. District Court in Cincinnati.
