Federal prosecutors are using internal Huawei emails and surveillance footage to argue that employees in China and the United States coordinated efforts to obtain proprietary technology belonging to T-Mobile. According to the South China Morning Post, Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Skurnik spent hours on Sept. 16 questioning FBI Special Agent James Diclemis about communications concerning “Tappy,” a robot developed by T-Mobile to automate smartphone quality testing.
Tappy, developed at T-Mobile’s Washington state laboratory, used a mechanical arm and specialized tip to reproduce tapping, swiping and typing on smartphone screens. The Justice Department’s original Tappy indictment alleged that Huawei engineers secretly photographed the robot, measured its components and, in one instance, removed a piece so engineers in China could attempt to replicate it.
The latest evidence included communications among Huawei employees in China and the United States. According to courtroom reporting by The Bureau, one internal message acknowledged T-Mobile’s refusal to disclose the technology: “TMO would not want to share the details about the robot technology/documents.” Prosecutors used corporate, payroll and immigration records to identify roughly a dozen Huawei employees connected to the communications.
Jurors were also shown surveillance footage that prosecutors say depicts a Huawei employee removing a component from Tappy and putting it into a backpack. The footage follows allegations made years earlier by the Justice Department that Huawei’s attempts to obtain the technology were part of a broader effort involving employees in both the United States and China.
During opening arguments, Justice Department trial attorney Taylor Stout told jurors that prosecutors would present witnesses who “caught Huawei red-handed trying to steal American tech,” according to Reuters. Stout summarized the government’s broader case with the words: “Theft, lies, cover-up.”
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Huawei says employee misconduct was isolated
Huawei has pleaded not guilty and disputes the government’s claim that misconduct by individual employees amounted to a company-wide criminal conspiracy. Defense attorney Brian Heberlig told jurors that prosecutors were taking normal activities at a multinational technology company and portraying them as evidence of organized criminal conduct, Reuters reported.
“It’s about competition, not conspiracy. Innovation, not theft,” Heberlig told the jury, according to Reuters. He added that Huawei “earned its success” and argued that “there was no blueprint for crime.”
The defense has specifically characterized the incidents involving T-Mobile and Cisco as the actions of individual employees rather than evidence of a corporate strategy. Heberlig accused prosecutors of “cherry-picking isolated events” and said those incidents should not be treated as proof of a broader conspiracy, according to Reuters.
The Justice Department has alleged a much wider pattern. In its racketeering case, federal prosecutors accused Huawei and several subsidiaries of using confidentiality agreements, employee recruitment and other methods to obtain proprietary technology from U.S. companies. The 2020 superseding indictment alleged that the targeted technology included internet-router source code, cellular antenna technology and robotics.
Prosecutors also alleged that Huawei established a system that rewarded employees for obtaining confidential information from competitors. The Justice Department said the alleged conduct was intended to reduce Huawei’s research and development costs and give the company an unfair commercial advantage. The department emphasized when announcing the charges that they “are allegations” and that the defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Iran and Meng Wanzhou remain central to the case
The trial extends well beyond the T-Mobile allegations. Reuters reported that prosecutors also accuse Huawei of misleading financial institutions about its business activities in Iran, moving U.S.-dollar transactions through the American financial system and concealing the company’s relationship with Hong Kong-based Skycom. Huawei denies wrongdoing and has said the prosecution is mischaracterizing its business activities.
Huawei has described the government’s case as an attempt to undermine the company’s competitiveness. A Huawei spokesperson told Reuters before the trial that “the government’s overarching narrative is demonstrably false.” Chinese authorities have also criticized the prosecution as part of broader U.S. pressure on Chinese technology companies.
The Iran portion of the case is closely tied to Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou, whose individual criminal charges were dismissed in 2022 after she entered a deferred prosecution agreement with U.S. authorities. Under that agreement, Meng accepted the accuracy of a statement of facts concerning representations she made to a financial institution about Huawei’s relationship with Skycom, according to the Justice Department.
The statement of facts says Meng described Huawei’s relationship with Skycom as “normal business cooperation” and called Skycom a “business partner.” The Justice Department said those representations were false because Huawei controlled Skycom, which conducted business in Iran and carried out U.S.-dollar transactions that passed through the American financial system.
When the agreement was announced in 2021, Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite said Meng had admitted that she “failed to tell the truth about Huawei’s operations in Iran,” while emphasizing that the government was continuing to prepare its case against Huawei itself, according to the Justice Department. Meng’s agreement ended the prosecution against her personally but did not resolve the criminal case against the company.
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