Employees of Hyundai Motor subcontractors were indicted on industrial espionage charges.
On September 17, 10 employees of Hyundai Motor subcontractors were indicted without detention by the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office for stealing Hyundai & Kia vehicle parts designs and using them in designing new vehicles for a Chinese carmaker.
In February-September 2014, they were dispatched to a Chinese automaker and were tasked within designing bumpers on new vehicles. Cho (age 30) and others made an unauthorized use of 71 bumper designs of the Hyundai Pride and the Santa Fe, stored in the company’s server.
Police investigations also revealed that Mr. Cho had contacted a former Hyundai subcontractor (age 34), identified only by his surname Kim, 16 times and obtained the Kia K7’s rear bumper designs.
A suspected accomplice (34), identified only by his surname Baek, is suspected of delivering the new Kia Sorento’s designs to Mr. Kim through Hyundai Motor’ in-house messenger on 19 separate occasions.