Chinese tech giant Huawei was hit Thursday with fresh US criminal charges alleging a "decades-long" effort to steal trade secrets from American companies.
A US indictment unsealed in New York alleges Huawei and its proxies conspired "to misappropriate intellectual property" from six US firms as part of a strategy to grow and become the world's largest telecom equipment maker, the Justice Department said.
The new charges including a federal racketeering allegation add to an indictment unsealed in January 2019 that alleged Huawei stole trade secrets from US carrier T-Mobile.
The indictment names Huawei and several subsidiaries, as well as the company's chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, who has been arrested in Canada over a related probe into Huawei's violations of US sanctions.
Huawei, one of the largest tech firms and a major telecom equipment maker, has been blacklisted by Washington amid concerns over its ties to the Chinese government and intelligence services.
The sanctions are aimed at blocking Huawei from getting any US telecom equipment contracts and prevent the transfer of American technology to the Chinese firm.
The company did not immediately respond to an AFP inquiry. It has previously strongly denied any use of "backdoors" for Chinese intelligence.
- 'Long-running deception' -
The new 16-count indictment says Huawei used a "long-running practice of using fraud and deception to misappropriate sophisticated technology from US counterparts," a Justice Department statement said, without naming the American companies.
"Huawei's efforts to steal trade secrets and other sophisticated US technology were successful," according to the statement, which said the company "obtained nonpublic intellectual property relating to internet router source code, ..
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