Chinese National in Missouri Sentenced for Economic Espionage

A Chinese national who formerly lived in St. Louis County has been sentenced to 29 months in federal prison for conspiracy to commit economic espionage. 

Forty-four-year-old Xiang Haitao pleaded guilty in January. 

He worked as an imaging scientist for a subsidiary of Monsanto — now Bayer — from 2008 to 2017, during which time the company developed a digital software platform used by farmers to collect and store agricultural data. 

Xiang stole copies of the software platform in 2017 and attempted to transport them to China. 

His sentence, handed down Thursday, includes a fine of 150-thousand dollars, and he’ll be on supervised release for three years after he leaves prison.