Steven Louis Davis, an engineer for Wright Industries, a Tennessee- based supplier to Gillette, was removed from a project to develop a new shaving system at Gillette’s request, where he had been originally assigned as the lead process engineer. Enraged, he then apparently sent the designs to several of Gillette’s competitors including Warner- Lambert, Bic and American Safety Razor Co. His actions were reported and he was indicted on five counts of fraud by wire and theft of trade secrets.
Family Spying Affair
A London based Israeli couple were arrested in 2005 and accused of playing a key role in the largest case of industrial espionage in Israel’s history. The couple had allegedly developed and sold Trojan horse software to more than 80 companies that wished to infiltrate and steal information from their competitor’s websites.
Unlocked Gates
New Microsoft source code was found to have been transferred remotely to an email account based in St Petersburg, Russia, in 2000. It is believed a Trojan horse program was used to penetrate the Redmond based technology giant’s systems. It is not known who was responsible, or what became of the stolen code.
Marks and Spooks
Marks and Spencer launched an investigation into an attempt to spy on the mobile phone records of boss Stuart Rose in 2004 via his mobile network 02.
Rocket Scam
Lockheed Martin, the US defence giant, sued rival Boeing in 2003 after alleging Boeing had acquired thousands of confidential documents relating to its bid for a £1.1bn military rocket contract. The Pentagon revoked a contracts worth half a billion pounds in response until two years later, when the two companies agreed to work together on a joint venture.
Federal Plant
A Federal Grand Jury in Pennsylvania returned indictments totalling eleven counts against three scientists of Taiwanese descent for attempting to gain the secret process formula for developing Taxol, which research company Bristol-Myers Squibb had invested over £7 million into developing to treat ovarian cancer. The trio has contacted a technological information broker and claimed they would be willing to pay £200,000 cash plus stock and royalties for the technology. The broker turned out to be an undercover FBI agent.
Photo Finished
Harold C Worden worked at Kodak for more than thirty years, the last five years of which he was project manager for what was called the 401 machine, a secret project to produce the plastic base used in consumer film inexpensively. On retirement Worden left the company with many plans, manuals and other confidential documents, worth millions of dollars to Kodak, which Worden sold for $26,700. Worden was sentenced to a year in prison and Kodak initiated a civil suit for damages.
Concordski
At the height of the Cold War in 1968 a supersonic passenger jet took flight in the Soviet Union shortly before the maiden flight of Concorde. The Tu-144, which looked remarkably similar to its French-British rival, had apparently been constructed after the technical specifications for Concorde were stolen by a spy codenamed Ace during the design stage. The Tu-144 was quietly retired after one of the planes crashed at the Paris air show in 1973.
