A former ASML employee has been given an entry ban for twenty years. The NOS reports this. An entry ban is only imposed if there is a threat to national security. The ministry does not want to explain the reason for the entry ban. It concerns a Russian man (43) who is suspected of stealing trade secrets from the Veldhoven chip machine manufacturer.
This is evident from research by News hour. A lawsuit is pending against the Russian engineer for multiple violations of sanctions legislation. He is suspected of stealing documents, such as microchip manuals, from both ASML and chip technology company Mapper Lithography. In exchange he would have received tens of thousands of euros.
Thanks to the stolen information, Russian chip production would have been further helped.
The man worked for the Delft startup Mapper Lithography in 2015. That company went bankrupt in 2018. The technology and employees, including the engineer, were taken over by ASML.
The man is said to have recently worked for the Eindhoven chip maker NXP.
Stuck in the Netherlands
ASML informs Nieuwsuur that it is aware of the lawsuit against the former ASML employee. The company itself has also filed a report. The Public Prosecution Service and the Russian engineer’s lawyer do not want to respond, according to the current affairs programme.
The suspect is in custody in the Netherlands. He will appear in court in Rotterdam on Monday for a pre-trial hearing.
Previous theft
This is not the first time for ASML that trade secrets have been stolen. In 2019, Chinese spies stole trade secrets on a large scale from a branch in San Jose, America. They accessed the internal networks for years and captured source codes, software, pricing strategies and secret user manuals.
The theft took place under the direction of XTAL, a competitor of the Veldhoven group founded in 2014. The company managed to process the stolen knowledge at breakneck speed and a year later acquired major customers from ASML, including electronics giant Samsung.
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