The Ahmedabad Cyber Crime Cell has apprehended an employee of AIA Engineering Limited, a global leader in high chromium wear castings, for allegedly committing corporate espionage by leaking confidential research and development (R&D) information to a competitor.
An FIR has been filed against Rajnikant Patel, deputy manager of AIA Engineering’s “Heat Department” in Ahmedabad, for allegedly sending confidential documents related to R&D related to heat treatment to a rival company of AIA Engineering in Jamshedpur, Jharkhand.
AIA Engineering is primarily engaged in designing, developing, manufacturing and installation of high chromium wear, corrosion and abrasion-resistant castings, which are used by cement, mining and thermal power generation industries.
According to a police complaint filed by Acchyut Parikh, vice-president, legal and admin of AIA Engineering, the accused employee Patel who is part of AIA since 1994, had entered a secrecy contract with the company according to which he cannot divulge any details of the heat department to people from other departments or outside the company.
“Recently, one of our clients floated a tender and a rival company from Jamshedpur also showed interest in the tender process. I knew that the rival company was not in a position to compete in the tender. It was then that suspicions rose on our employees and we found in an internal probe that Rajnikant had transferred several confidential and highly sensitive documents of AIA to his private mail id… He had also transferred documents from other departments to which he had no authorisation for access,” said Parikh in his police complaint.’
“From January 13 to January 16 this year, Patel stayed in Hotel Madhuban in Jharkhand which was provided by the rival company. The rival company could not have made Grinding and Crushing elements without the R&D documents given illegally by Patel,” the complaint added.