South Korean Police Arrest 77 People in Industrial Espionage Cases

Police in South Korea have arrested 77 people on suspicion of involvement in 35 cases of industrial espionage that were discovered during a recent nationwide investigation.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted the National Police Service as saying that most of the cases involved only local companies, but eight of them involved the leaking of technological secrets to China or other countries.

Yonhap said, citing police data, that the number of cases involving information leakage abroad is double the number of cases after similar investigations conducted a year ago.

The agency's report stated that the authorities arrested a suspect for leaking confidential information after he moved from work in a local company to another in China.

The report added that the Chinese company promised to pay him hundreds of thousands of dollars to cover housing, education, and living expenses in exchange for the information.