New fraud charges laid against ex-Intel employee accused of stealing trade secrets

Another case of high-tech fraud has surfaced, and this time there is an India connection. Design engineer Biswamohan Pani, who previously worked for Intel, was charged on Wednesday with four counts of wire fraud, which will be added to his August charge of trade secret theft.

The incident occurred at the same time with his decision to leave Intel and join Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) in June. The information was evaluated at more than $1 billion in research and development costs. Pani, a native of Orissa, has already been charged by the FBI in a US district court in Boston in late August.

Apparently, Pani announced Intel's officials that he was leaving the company in order to focus on a job at a hedge fund, but immediately began working for AMD. The indictment notes that the engineer accessed Intel's computer network and copied 13 top secret documents and also other confidential, proprietary and sensitive information related to the company's activities.

Intel demanded the involvement of the FBI and also of the US Justice Department, in order to gather all the needed proof to build up the case. The FBI found the stolen data at Pani's place of residence. Investigators have said that there is no reason to believe that AMD was involved in the alleged theft of trade secrets.

Pani is currently free on a $100,000 bail, but if the court finds him guilty, he might be looking at a 10-year jail term for the trade secret indictment, 20 years for each of his four wire fraud charges and also a $250,000 fine for each of the counts.