Photo/Illutration The Metropolitan Police Department headquarters in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

A Chinese scientist working for Japan’s state-funded research body was arrested on June 15 on suspicion of industrial espionage, according to the Metropolitan Police Department in Tokyo.

Quan Hengdao, 59, a researcher at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), is alleged to have given a Chinese firm the institute’s confidential data in a possible violation of the Unfair Competition Prevention Law.

The data, on technologies for synthesizing fluorine compounds, is believed to have been shared with the firm in an email sent on April 13, 2018, from an account that belonged to the AIST.

Quan, a resident of Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, is believed to have been part of the team that was working on the data.

Police did not disclose whether Quan admitted to the allegations.

Investigators are searching locations related to the suspect and looking into ties between him and the Chinese firm.

Quan joined the AIST in 2002, according to the organization, which is one of the largest public research bodies in Japan with approximately 2,300 scientists and engineers working at 12 locations across the country.

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