U.S. is leading espionage target

WASHINGTON, March 26 (UPI) -- The United States has become the leading target for the theft and illicit transfer of military technologies, a U.S. official said.

John Carlin, acting assistant attorney general for national security, said the U.S. intelligence community has determined China is among the most aggressive collectors of sensitive U.S. information and technologies, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.

The latest example of that is Sixing Liu, a Chinese citizen who worked at a major U.S. defense contractor, L-3 Communications.

L-3 and a small company were developing a device called a disk resonator gyroscope that allows drones, missiles and rockets to hit targets without satellite guidance.

Liu was sentenced Monday to 70 months in prison for taking thousands of files about the device and other defense systems to China in violation of a U.S. arms embargo.

Earlier this month a Chinese citizen who worked as a contractor at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., was arrested at Washington Dulles International Airport on charges of making false statements about the laptop and SIM card in his possession.