U.S. federal prosecutors say two men from Italy and Russia have been charged with trying to steal trade secrets from an American aviation company.
The Justice Department unsealed a criminal complaint on Thursday accusing the two of plotting to steal intellectual property, including engineering patterns, from Ohio-based GE Aviation.
The complaint charges Alexander Yuryevich Korshunov, a Russian national, and Maurizio Paolo Bianchi, an Italian national, with one count each of trade secret theft. Korshunov was arrested last week at an airport in Italy.
Prosecutors say the scheme unfolded after Bianchi, a former director at an Italian subsidiary of GE Aviation, left the company. He joined another company that had a contract with the subsidiary of the Russian-owned company where Korshunov worked.
It wasn’t clear if either man had a lawyer.
