The Chinese biggest smartphone brand has officially been criminally charged by the US government – so the chances are you will see Huawei smartphones and routers in the US drabber today.
As we already know that Huawei which is now the world’s 2nd biggest smartphone brand ahead of Apple, faced 23 criminal charges spanning 2 separate indictments by the US Department of Justice. The 23 criminal charges include Iran Sanction Violations, Money Laundering, 10 Counts of Theft, 13 Counts of Financial Fraud and charges stemming from that action.
Mr., Matthew Whitaker (US Attorney General) said,
“Criminal activity goes back to least 10 years and goes all the way to the top of the company”.
Doing Business with Iran and Covering it up
This is the first and foremost set of criminal charges surround Huawei’s CFO Mr. Wanzhou Meng and less famous affiliate called Skycom. The CFO Mr. Wanzhou Meng back in early December arrested in Canada and faced extradition to the US.
The Huawei’s affiliate “Skycom” was doing business in Iran – though the US government accuses Huawei of covering up that fact with lying and committing bank and wire fraud to cover its tracks. According to the US Department of Justice, it’s an effort just to undermine the US permissions.
Tappy on Trial
The second charge against Huawei surrounds the theft of trade secrets back in 2012. The US well-named “T-Mobile” made a phone-testing robot called “Tappy”. Actually, Huawei wanted to build their own robot for testing smartphones. So, its engineers secretly took images measurements of “Tappy”. Not only this but also blamed of stealing a piece of that robot just to make a robot like Tappy in China – according to the US Department of Justice.
Later, when T-Mobile threatened to sue, Huawei claimed that this theft was by “Route Actors” within the company. Though, the US government said it has emails that point to a conspiracy to seal secrets and that was, without any doubt, the effort of the entire company.
