Canada Busts Guy for Trying to Slip Navy Secrets to China

Contractor-turned-spy could get life
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 2, 2013 12:27 AM CST
Canada: Man Tried to Pass Navy Secrets to China
The Canadian Coast guard's medium icebreaker is seen in Nunavut, Canada.    (AP Photo/The Canadian Press,Sean Kilpatrick)

The Mounties have busted a man deemed a "threat to Canada" for allegedly attempting to sell secrets about the country's massive new shipbuilding program to China. Investigators say Qing Quentin Huang, a naturalized Canadian citizen, tried to pass information about the $33 billion plan to build 23 new warships, along with icebreakers and other support vehicles, to China via a contact at the country's embassy in Ottawa, the Toronto Star reports.

Huang, 53, has been employed in Ontario since 2006 by Lloyd’s Register, a subcontractor working on the naval upgrade, and had been tasked with assessing ship designs, the Globe and Mail finds. He had access to commercially confidential designs involving Arctic-going vessels but didn't have the security clearance to access classified information on warships, and the company says it doesn't know if he obtained such information by unauthorized means. Huang—who investigators believe was working alone in "a conspiracy of one"—faces life in prison if convicted. (More Canada stories.)

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