But I never shared this with anybody.
OK. But you took it.
That's the problem, OK.
That's where we're at right now.
This is Dr. Shannon You two hours after she was arrested,
and when the FBI picked her up, they also found a briefcase containing
$4,000 and suspect she was about to flee the country.
The then 56-year-old might make for an unlikely spy,
but nudged by an FBI interrogator, she's about to talk herself
into a 14-year prison sentence
for stealing $120 million worth of trade secrets.
In the process, the case will reveal details of how industrial espionage
has become a cornerstone of China's economic growth.
My name is Jordan Robertson,
and I'm a cybersecurity reporter
for Bloomberg here in London.
This story is about an incentive system
that the likes of which the world has never seen before.
was a chemical engineer for Coca-Cola.
She evaluated the coatings that went inside
all of the cans that Coca-Cola makes.
What these formulations do is they actually protect
the can from the Coke.
They prevent the chemicals in soda from eroding the can that they're in.
For the companies that make it like BASF, Dow Chemical and AkzoNobel,
the chemical formulas are a closely guarded secret.
They cost an estimated $120 million to develop.
So far, no Chinese company has managed to develop an equivalent,
and You has the formulas on her hard drive.
I have never shared any technology with anybody in China, OK.
I go back to China because my mom is in the last stage of her life,
and so I took every opportunities to go to China to see my mom.
At the start of the interrogation,
You is adamant that she's done nothing wrong,
but she's being a little disingenuous because she has been going back
to China to interview for the Thousand Talents Program.
The Thousand Talents Program is a Chinese national government program,
and it's designed to incentivize
ethnic Chinese who have moved abroad to work or study
to return to China and to start businesses there.
The critics of the program say it's really a multibillion-dollar scheme
that incentivizes them to steal foreign technology
and bring it home with them.
And this is the guy that the FBI
alleges has been helping her application,
He's the chief engineer
for Weihai Jinhong Group.
And that company wants to get into the business of making BPA-NI,
the chemical lining for Coke cans.
Weihai Jinhong did not respond to requests from Bloomberg News for comment.
The interrogation is almost
a masterclass in how you unravel a scheme like this,
because at almost every stage the FBI catches her in a lie.
The plan was to form a new company.
That's what...
A joint-venture company?
Yeah, that's what, that's what Mr. Liu was thinking, OK.
But it never got there.
For her part,
You insists that all she ever did was to introduce the Chinese firm
to some other companies interested in getting into the business.
In the interrogation room, this is where she starts to come unstuck.
Did you guys sign a contract?
For...?
For your work over there?
I did, but there was no work.
There's no work?
Yeah.
Right.
There’s no work,
because my work, basically, just introduce, I did not do anything.
Unfortunately for You, the FBI had a copy of the contract.
Party A Jinhong’s responsibilities include investing
the initial amount of ¥6 million ($865,000) and providing the location,
among other preparation work, which is expected to take one year.
This is just talking though.
Ms. You, it's not just talking.
Look, look at the facts.
You signed the contract.
Yeah.
They said they would pay you.
The contract was to help
build a lab. They said when the lab was built,
you would have shareholders in that lab.
And then weeks later,
you were making emails inquiring about building a lab.
It's not just paper.
Then the FBI agents reveal their hand.
They have her voicemails and have read her text messages.
In quick succession, they outline how: she knew that joining
the Thousand Talents might invite the FBI's attention,
Liu had suggested that she keep her job at Coca-Cola to, quote,
You didn't want any publicity around winning the Thousand Talents
for fear of alerting US authorities.
And the coup de grace? A voicemail left by her sister.
This time, You’s response is far more muted.
Well,
I did not do anything.
What her messages reveal about that defense is she was trying to share it.
She wanted to get paid first, and ultimately she was prosecuted
not based on whether she shared it with the Chinese government or not.
Did she take it? That was a central question.
And her messages show that the endgame of this was to share
that information and launch this company in China and get rich.
Yes, this is a tale about stealing Coke's other secret formula,
but it's also about how China is incentivizing espionage far
beyond the realms of defense technology and national security
and into the furthest reaches of the economy.
For more on how You was caught, read the full story on Businessweek.com
and follow Bloomberg Quicktake on your favorite platforms.