Three engineers have been charged with conspiring to steal trade secrets from Google and other leading technology companies. Samaneh Ghandali, 41, Mohammad Khosravi, 40, and Soroor Ghandali, 32, all of San Jose, were arrested yesterday and made their first appearance in federal district court in San Jose that afternoon.
All three defendants worked in the mobile processor industry, giving them access to sensitive information such as processor security technology, cryptography and the company’s confidential technical documents. Samaneh Ghandali and Soroor Ghandali are siblings who previously worked at Google before moving to other companies.
The stolen secrets are believed to have been given to unauthorized entities, including the Iranian state. The data was stolen using disguise tactics such as sending false affidavits to the company, destroying files and records and manually taking screenshots of the secrets. Samaneh's activities were detected by Google's security system in August 2023.
If found guilty, the accused could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison and a $250,00 fine for each count.
