Former Google engineers charged with stealing Pixel Phone processor secrets

By Robert Burnson

 

Two former Google engineers and one of their husbands were indicted for allegedly stealing trade secrets relating to the company’s Tensor processor for Pixel phones.

 

The three — all Iranian nationals — were charged in a US indictment unsealed Thursday on 14 felony counts of conspiracy and theft of trade secrets and destroying evidence. 

 

Samaneh Ghandali, 41, was a hardware engineer at Google in Silicon Valley and her sister, Soroor Ghandali, 32, was an intern before they both joined another tech firm. Samaneh’s husband, Mohammadjavad Khosravi, 40, applied multiple times at Google but was not hired, and worked for a third tech company.

 

The three were arrested Thursday and made initial appearances in federal court in San Jose, California, the Justice Department said in a statement. If convicted on the most serious charges, they could be sentenced to at least 20 years in prison, according to the statement.

 

“We have enhanced safeguards to protect our confidential information and immediately alerted law enforcement after discovering this incident,” José Castañeda, a Google spokesperson, said in a statement. “Today’s indictments are an important step towards accountability and we’ll continue working to ensure our trade secrets remain secure.”  

 

A lawyer for the defendants at the public defender’s office couldn’t immediately be reached for comment outside regular business hours.

 

While working at Google, Samaneh Ghandali sent more than 300 files, including company trade secrets, to a third-party communications application based outside of the US, according to the indictment.

 

Soroor Ghandali sent 34 files, also including trade secrets, in the same way, the indictment says.

 

Prosecutors allege the three intended to provide the trade secrets to third parties, but it’s not clear from the indictment if this happened.

 

Google’s internal security system detected the sisters’ downloading of its files and notified the FBI, according to the indictment.

 

The case is USA v. Ghandali, 26-cr-00071, US District Court, Northern District of California (San Jose).