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Boeing Engineer Indicted for Allegedly Stealing AI Trade Secrets: Feds

Yuri Levchuk, 55, is accused of using the technology to obtain more than $3 million in DoD research grants.

A former Boeing systems engineer has been indicted for allegedly stealing proprietary AI software from the venerable aircraft maker, then using it to obtain more than $3 million in Department of Defense research grants through an undisclosed business he set up on the side. Yuri Levchuk, 55, is charged in Maryland federal court with theft of trade secrets and unauthorized possession of trade secrets, according to a charging document unsealed Friday and obtained by The Daily Beast. Levchuk’s criminal activity, prosecutors say, began in 2009 and continued for the next decade, during which time the senior employee allegedly pilfered some 500,000 files from Boeing’s secure network. (The company is not identified by name in the filing, but the various details match precisely with Boeing’s Germantown, Maryland, operation—where Levchuk worked from 2008 to 2019, per his LinkedIn profile.) If convicted, Levchuk faces up to 20 years in prison. He does not yet have an attorney listed in court records, and a call on Friday morning to a cellphone listed under his name went straight to voicemail.