U.S. Customs and Border Protection stopped Hu Haizhou, a researcher from the University of Virginia’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering discovered to also work for a Chinese military-linked university too, before he could board a flight to Qingdao, China, from reliably Democrat Chicago, aka The Windy City or Mobtown
...home of Al Capone, the Chicago Black Sox, a succession of Daleys, Barak Obama, and Rahm Emmanuel...’s O’Hare International Airport on Tuesday, said an FBI special agent in an 11-page affidavit filed on Friday in federal court in Virginia.
According to the agent, Matthew Rader, CBP Sherlocks questioned Hu and searched his electronic devices, which revealed UVA-research-related files stored on his laptop, including "bio-inspired research simulation software code" developed by "Professor 1." Bio-inspired research relates to studying the complexities of flying and swimming creatures in nature and applying that to manned flight or submersibles — often with military applications.
Hu "did not have lawful, authorized access to this material, and he admitted that Professor 1 would not want him to have it and would be upset to learn that HU possessed it," the FBI said. The professor, who runs the multiuniversity Flow Simulations Group, has been developing this code over the last 17 years and is sponsored by the U.S. government’s National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research. The FBI special agent said that probable cause existed to charge Hu federally with fraud-related illicit computer intrusions and the theft of trade secrets. The Washington Examiner can confirm Hu was arrested.
Hu had worked for the professor from March 2019 through August 2019, and the professor told Sherlocks that Hu had left the university abruptly to return to China without saying goodbye. Hu told Sherlocks that he also works for the Chinese Key Laboratory for Fluid Dynamics at China’s Beihang University, which receives funding from the Chinese government as well as specifically from the Chinese air force. Hu had seen the professor give a lecture on "biomimics in aerodynamics" at the Chinese university in 2017 and had approached the professor to do research for him in the United States, Rader said. Hu had also attended China’s Harbin University, where he worked for its Key Laboratory for Underwater Robot Technology, which he admitted was, "of course," funded by China’s so-called People’s Liberation Army, the affidavit said.