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WASHINGTON — The Justice Department unveiled sweeping charges on Monday against the Chinese telecom firm Huawei and its chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, outlining a decade-long attempt by the company to steal trade secrets, obstruct a criminal investigation and evade economic sanctions on Iran.
The pair of indictments, which were partly unsealed on Monday, come amid a broad and aggressive campaign by the United States to try to thwart China’s biggest telecom equipment maker. Officials have long suspected Huawei of working to advance Beijing’s global ambitions and undermine America’s interests and have begun taking steps to curb its international presence.
The charges underscore Washington’s determination to prove that Huawei poses a national security threat and to convince other nations that it cannot be trusted to build their next generation of wireless networks, known as 5G. The indictments, based in part on the company’s internal emails, describe a plot to steal testing equipment from T-Mobile laboratories in Bellevue, Wash. They also cite internal memos, obtained from Ms. Meng, that prosecutors said link her to an elaborate bank fraud that helped Huawei profit by evading Iran sanctions.
The acting attorney general, Matthew G. Whitaker, flanked by the heads of several other cabinet agencies, said the United States would seek to have Ms. Meng extradited from Canada, where she was detained last year at the request of the United States.
The charges outlined Monday come at a sensitive diplomatic moment, as top officials from China are expected to arrive in Washington this week for two days of talks aimed at resolving a monthslong trade war between the world’s two largest economies. Trump administration officials have insisted that Ms. Meng’s detention will not affect the trade talks, but the timing of the indictment coming so close to in-person discussions is likely to further strain relations between the two countries.
Ms. Meng is the daughter of Huawei’s founder and one of the most powerful industrialists in the country. Her arrest has outraged the Chinese government, which has since arrested two Canadians, in apparent retaliation. The indictment now presents Canada with a politically charged decision: whether to extradite Ms. Meng to face the fraud charges, or make a legal or political determination to send her back to Beijing.
In a statement on Tuesday, China’s Foreign Ministry called on the United States and Canada to let Ms. Meng go.
“For a long time, the U.S. has used state power to smear and attack certain Chinese companies in an attempt to stifle legitimate business operations,” it said. “Behind that, there is strong political motivation and manipulation. We strongly urge the U.S. to stop unreasonable suppression of Chinese companies, including Huawei, and treat Chinese enterprises fairly and objectively.”
A spokesman for Huawei, Joe Kelly, said it “is not aware of any wrongdoing by Ms. Meng, and believes the U.S. courts will ultimately reach the same conclusion.” The company also denied violating American laws.
The indictment unsealed against Ms. Meng is similar to the charges leveled against the Huawei executive in filings made by federal prosecutors in connection with the bail hearing in Canada. It claimed that Huawei defrauded four large banks into clearing transactions with Iran in violation of international sanctions through a subsidiary called Skycom. Federal authorities did not identify the banks, but in an earlier court proceeding in Canada after Ms. Meng’s arrest, prosecutors had identified one of the banks as HSBC.
The most serious new allegation in the indictment, which could have bearing on the extradition proceeding in Canada, is the contention by federal prosecutors that Huawei sought to impede the investigation into the telecom company’s attempt to evade economic sanctions on Iran by destroying or concealing evidence.
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