[ad_1]
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A former Chinese-born Cleveland clinic employee has been arrested on fraud charges related to $ 3.6 million (£ 2.95 million) in federal grants, the FBI, the latest move in a US crackdown on Thursday, said. Alleged attempts by China will steal American scientific advances.
The FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies searched Shaker Heights, Ohio, the home of Dr. Qing Wang, and arrested him on Wednesday on false charges and wire fraud.
Prosecutors said Wang accepted grants from the National Institutes of Health without revealing that he was serving as dean of the Faculty of Life Sciences and Technology at Huazhong University of Science and Technology at the same time. That was a violation of the terms of the grants, they said.
They said that Wang is a Chinese-born American citizen specializing in cardiovascular genetics and diseases who has been affiliated with the Cleveland Clinic since 1997.
“Dr. Wang deliberately did not disclose his Chinese grants and foreign positions and even engaged in a widespread pattern of fraud to avoid criminal culpability,” said Eric Smith, head of the FBI’s Cleveland office.
US investigators say China and its citizens and operatives have made extensive and aggressive efforts to steal unclassified US technology, ranging from military hardware to medical research, but US agencies have only launched a broad effort to stop alleged Chinese espionage in the United States. United in 2018.
The FBI alleged that Wang participated in the Thousand Talents program, a scheme that US officials say the Chinese government created to network with people who had access to foreign technology or valuable data.
The researchers said that through Wang’s participation in the Thousand Talents program, China provided $ 3 million in support of the research to improve facilities and operations at the institutions it was affiliated with in China.
The Cleveland Clinic said it had fired Wang after learning that it had not disclosed its ties to China.
“Cleveland Clinic has cooperated fully with NIH and federal law enforcement agencies while conducting their own investigations on these same issues and will continue to do so,” it said in a statement.
In one of several recent cases involving alleged Chinese efforts to steal American technology, a Harvard biology professor in January was accused of lying to the Pentagon and NIH about their involvement in the program.
An attorney representing Wang declined to comment immediately.
[ad_2]
