17 December 2004 – LAWFUEL law news – The United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California announced that Yan Ming Shan, 35, of Daqing, China, was sentenced to two years in prison today by U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel for gaining unauthorized access to a Silicon Valley business’ computers in order to fraudulently obtain proprietary software programs and source code.
According to the criminal complaint and other court filings, Mr. Shan worked for 3DGeo Development Inc., a Mountain View company that develops software used to survey land for sources of natural gas and oil, from April to September 2002. 3DGeo employed Mr. Shan under an agreement with one of its customers, PetroChina, a Chinese company with a division named DaQing Oil, which arranged for its employee Mr. Shan to travel to California for training on 3DGeo’s software. In pleading guilty to the indictment in July 2004, Mr. Shan admitted that he gained unauthorized access to 3DGeo’s computer system with an intent to defraud the company.
FBI agents arrested Mr. Shan in September 2002, as he attempted to board a flight to China. He was held in custody as a flight risk following his arrest until September 2004.
The prosecution is the result of an investigation by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and was overseen by the Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property (CHIP) Unit of the United States Attorney’s Office. Kyle F. Waldinger is the Assistant U.S. Attorney who prosecuted the case.
A copy of this press release may be found on the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s website at www.usdoj.gov/usao/can. Related court documents and information may be found on the District Court website at www.cand.uscourts.gov or on
All press inquiries to the U.S. Attorney’s Office should be directed to Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher P. Sonderby, Chief of the CHIP Unit, at (415) 308-7993, or Luke Macaulay at (415) 436-6757.
