Chinese pleads guilty to selling stolen US software

The software was stolen from about 200 American manufacturers and sold to 325 black market buyers in 60 countries between 2008 and 2011, the Shanghai Daily quoted prosecutors as saying.

Buyers in 28 US states included a NASA engineer and the chief scientist for a defence and law-enforcement contractor, prosecutors said.

Corporate victims in the case include Microsoft, Oracle, Rockwell Automation, Agilent Technologies, Siemens, Delcam, Altera Corp and SAP, a government spokesman said.

The businessman, Li Xiang from Chengdu, was arrested in June 2011 during an undercover sting by agents of the US Department of Homeland Security on the Pacific island of Saipan, an American territory near Guam.

 

Li, 36, originally charged in a 46-count indictment, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit criminal copyright violations and wire fraud.

"I want to tell the court that what I did was wrong and illegal and I want to say I'm sorry," Li told US District Judge Leonard Stark during a 90-minute hearing.

He, however, disputed the monetary value put on the programs, and plans to present his own estimate at his sentencing May 3.

Li trolled internet forums in search of hacked software, and people with the know-how to crack the passwords needed to run the programs. Then he advertised them for sale on his websites, officials said.

At one point, Li's websites offered more than 2,000 pirated software titles, prosecutors said.