Another Chinese national working for Apple’s autonomous vehicle project has been arrested and accused by the FBI of stealing trade secrets.
The investigation into Jizhong Chen began when an employee said he saw the engineer snapping photos in a “sensitive workspace,” according to a local San Francisco-area NBC affiliate which first reported the news.
According to a federal criminal complaint, which was unsealed this week, Chen allowed Apple’s security personnel to search his computer, where they found materials including manuals, schematics, diagrams and photos taken inside an Apple facility.
Apple learned that Chen had applied for a job at a China-based autonomous vehicle company which is a competitor of Apple’s Project Titan initiative.
The legal action comes after a similar case last July involving another Chinese national working on Titan.
Apple has recently scaled back the project, laying off or transferring 200 employees from the unit, according to a recent report from CNBC.