US indicts Huawei for stealing T-Mobile robot arm, selling US tech to Iran

Enlarge / Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies Co., leaves her home while out on bail in Vancouver on Thursday, Jan. 10, 2019. (credit: Ben Nelms/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

US prosecutors unsealed a pair of indictments against Huawei on Monday, escalating the Trump administration's battle with the Chinese smartphone giant. One of the indictments also names Meng Wanzhou-Huawei's chief financial officer and the daughter of the company's founder-and accuses her and the company of selling US technology to Iran in violation of US sanctions laws.

The other indictment charges Huawei with stealing cell phone testing technology from T-Mobile. And Huawei is accused of stealing the technology in the most literal sense: according to the indictment, a Huawei employee entered a T-Mobile testing lab, put a proprietary robot arm into his laptop bag, and walked out. The heist was the final step in Huawei's increasingly aggressive efforts to learn how T-Mobile's smartphone testing system works.

US prosecutors argue that the two indictments reveal a culture of deception at the Chinese smartphone giant.

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