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The dramatic heist that unraveled in Honolulu’s airport in 2013 didn’t involve gold bars or government intelligence stored on a USB drive. The thieves were hoping to shift something smaller and possibly even more valuable: rice seeds.
Like many heists, the plotters had an ‘inside man’, a scientist working at Ventria Bioscience, a company nestled in an industrial building on the outskirts of Junction City, Kansas. Despite its unassuming appearance, Ventria was actually a hotbed of Midwestern farming, corporate espionage, and international intrigue.
The company had invested $75m in patents to create rice seeds containing recombinant proteins for medical uses. The patents were the IP equivalent of a gold mine with the potential to generate upward of $1bn in revenue every year. Before long, Ventria caught the eye of China’s Tianjin Crop Research Institute. TCRI wanted to get their hands on their rival’s rice seeds and a share of the lucrative market. With a bit of luck, they might even push the Kansas company into bankruptcy.
But how? According to the US Department of Justice, TCRI recruited Kansas-based scientist Weiqiang Zhang to commit corporate espionage. Zhang, had worked for TCRI in China from 1992 to 2000 and expressed a desire to return one day. He was ideally situated for the sticky rice job.
Rice Heist
Zhang was a ‘rice breeder’ at Ventria, a company that considered its rice seeds so valuable they had tight security. The Kansas lab maintained seed banks in a climate-controlled environment and only a half dozen employees had access to the storage area. Zhang was one of the six.
Plans for the rice heist were in play by summer 2013 and involved four men, according to the DoJ and court documents. Two of the gang were part of a Chinese delegation who planned to visit US agricultural facilities and universities. They’d been invited by the US Department of Agriculture’s Wengui Yan, the third man in the crew. Yan later admitted bringing the delegation to an Arkansas farm where he knew they’d have an opportunity to steal rice seeds.
Zhang was the four man in the caper - the inside man. Even before the delegation arrived, the DoJ said Zhang was stealing rice seeds from his employer and hiding them in his kitchen freezer. When the group finally reached Kansas, Zhang took time off work and invited the Chinese delegates to visit him privately at home.
