Spy caught in DuPont Pioneer corn fields cuts deal with Feds

Feds will seek no more than five years in prison for stealing seeds

By Joe Dales, Vice-President, Farms.com

Remember when DuPont Pioneer security found the Chinese spy crawling around in Iowa cornfields a couple years ago?

Mo Hailong entered a plea agreement on Wednesday with U.S. prosecutors, admitting he stole seeds from DuPont Pioneer and Monsanto, with the intention to ship them back to China so that genetic traits could be reproduced.

Mr. Mo, 46, will be sentenced in Des Moines. He originally could have received up to a 10-year sentence, but with this agreement, his maximum term will be five years.

He was arrested in December 2013 following an investigation after DuPont Pioneer security alerted the FBI they’d witnessed a number of Chinese men crawling around in cornfields.

Mr. Mo was accused of the conspiracy after he travelled to Illinois and Iowa as an employee of Kings Nower Seed, a subsidiary of the Beijing Dabeinong Technology Group.

He is the only person prosecuted after five other Chinese citizens working with him fled the country.

The 20-year resident of the U.S. still may be deported after he serves his upcoming sentence.