Indian pleads guilty to stealing trade secrets in U.S.

Monday, 08 November 2010, 20:22 IST   |    30 Comments
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Indian pleads guilty to stealing trade secrets in U.S.
Boston: An Indian-origin former employee of pharma company Bristol-Myers-Squibb has pleaded guilty to stealing trade secrets from the drug manufacturer so that he could set up his own business in India. Shalin Jhaveri, 30, entered a guilty plea to a one-count charge of theft of trade secrets. A Syracuse, New York resident, Jhaveri faces up to 10 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and up to three years of supervised release and deportation, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of New York Richard Hartunian said in a statement. Jhaveri, who holds a Ph.D, also agreed to be deported from the U.S. after completion of any jail term imposed. He cannot seek relief or appeal his order of deportation. After being deported Jhaveri would never be able to seek re-entry into the U.S. Jhaveri, who worked as a technical operations associate in Bristol-Myers' management training programme, was arrested in February this year. He had worked at the company since November 2007, but was fired in February from the company's Syracuse facility, where it develops and manufactures biotechnology medicines for clinical and commercial use. While he was employed, Jhaveri stole the company's trade secrets and devised a plan to put them to his own use. At the time of his arrest, he was meeting with an investor who was willing to finance Jhaveri's business venture planned in India with his father. Jhaveri had taken more than 1,300 documents from the company starting in late 2009. He downloaded the information to his laptop and portable hard drives over the course of several days and shared these trade secrets with his potential investor. In December 2009, Bristol-Myers' corporate security had notified its in-house computer security experts that Jhaveri was taking confidential material. They later learned that Jhaveri planned to start a biopharmaceutical business in India with his father.
Source: PTI