On October 21, 2019, federal prosecutors in Detroit charged Amin
Hasanzadeh, a senior hardware engineer, with allegedly sending
corporate trade secrets to his brother in Iran while
working at a Michigan company which serves the auto and aerospace
industries. According to prosecutors, Hasanzadeh was funneling
sensitive technical data from his unnamed employer, “Victim
Company A,” for more than a year.
Investigations revealed that even before Hasanzadeh was employed
with Victim Company A, he began communicating with his brother
about gaining potential employment. Then, within six days of
employment, Hasanzadeh allegedly began covertly transferring
confidential documents and data via a personal email address to his
brother’s email account in Iran. The documents included
hundreds of layouts, projects, schematics, notes, zip files,
technical drawings, and other documents containing product
performance specifications and proprietary information. These
unauthorized
