Chinese National Indicted for Wire Fraud and Identity Theft in NASA Software Theft Scheme

Song Wu, a 39-year-old Chinese national, has been indicted on 14 counts of wire fraud and 14 counts of aggravated identity theft. The charges stem from his alleged efforts to fraudulently obtain specialized computer software and source code from NASA, research universities, and private companies involved in aerospace engineering.

According to the indictment and court documents, Song conducted a multi-year spear phishing email campaign. He created fake email accounts to impersonate U.S.-based researchers and engineers, targeting employees at NASA, the U.S. Air Force, Navy, Army, the Federal Aviation Administration, major research universities, and private aerospace companies. His emails appeared to be from colleagues or acquaintances, requesting access to proprietary software used in aerospace engineering and computational fluid dynamics.

Song was employed as an engineer at Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) at the time of the alleged scheme. AVIC is a state-owned aerospace and defense conglomerate based in Beijing, China, known for manufacturing civilian and military aircraft.

If convicted, Song faces up to 20 years in prison for each wire fraud count and a mandatory two-year consecutive sentence for each count of aggravated identity theft.

The investigation is being conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and NASA’s Office of Inspector General. Assistant U.S. Attorney Samir Kaushal is handling the prosecution, with support from Trial Attorney Tanner Kroeger of the National Security Cyber Section and the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section.

The case is coordinated by the Disruptive Technology Strike Force, an interagency team led by the Departments of Justice and Commerce to address threats to critical technology and supply chains from hostile nations.