The DOJ just slapped Huawei with a pretty serious racketeering charge

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Telecoms giant Huawei and two subsidiaries have just been indicted by the U.S. government for federal racketeering and conspiracy to steal trade secrets from American companies.

That’s a big escalation in the ongoing fight between the administration and Huawei, which has already been banned from buying many American tech products and parts.

The U.S. government just charged Huawei with racketeering and conspiracy to steal trade secrets

This latest legal tussle for Huawei sees it charged with a federal racketeering law that has been used to bring down mob kingpins while allowing charges to be filed that would otherwise lie outside of the statute of limitations. The Justice Department says the criminal conspiracy has been going on for two decades, all the way back to 1999. Whew.

Other current Chinese nationals in legal troubles with the U.S. government include:

• Huawei’s CFO, Meng Wanzhou was charged last year with an alleged decade-long campaign to steal trade secrets, avoid economic sanctions on Iran, and obstruction
• This week, four members of China’s military were charged with the hack into Equifax that exfiltrated the personal data of 145 million Americans

With the race to 5G heating up, the increasing pressure on Huawei looks like an attempt to push them out of the global market. Who can blame the government for this though, as they’ve got proof Huawei could be using its hardware to monitor traffic across the networks it is installed on.

What do you think? Surprised by this news regarding Huawei? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

Editors’ Recommendations:

• Google says there’s a serious security flaw that’s targeting Pixel, Samsung, and Huawei phones
• China doesn’t want its government agencies using any US-made technology
• Google yanks Huawei’s Android license after the government blacklists the Chinese company
• Kids in China can no longer play video games past their bedtimes

Joe Rice-Jones

Maker, meme-r, and unabashed geek with nearly half a decade of blogging experience at KnowTechie, SlashGear and XDA Developers. If it runs on electricity (or even if it doesn't), Joe probably has one around his office somewhere, with particular focus in gadgetry and handheld gaming. Shoot him an email at joe@knowtechie.com.