Konnech CEO Arrested on Suspicion of Storing Election Workers’ Data in China
LA District Attorney’s Office seized hard drives and other digital evidence against Konnech CEO Eugene Yu but didn’t specify the type of data they allegedly stole.
This week, a high-ranking tech executive was arrested on data theft suspicion in Michigan at the behest of Los Angeles county. Konnech Corporation CEO Eugene Yu was arrested on suspicion of storing election workers’ data in China.
Konnech develops PollChief, a payroll, communication, training, and logistics management system for election workers that the Los Angeles county leverages under contract during elections.
“Under its $2.9 million, five-year contract with the county, Konnech was supposed to securely maintain the data and that only United States citizens and permanent residents have access to it,” stated Los Angeles County District Attorney.
However, an investigation revealed that the company stored the information on servers located in China. A similar controversy erupted in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic when the video-conferencing service Zoom was found to be routing streaming data through China. The difference is that Zoom wasn’t obligated to steer clear of China.
Consequently, Eugene Yu, the CEO of Konnech, was apprehended under suspicion of theft of the personal identifying information of poll workers. Konnech was the subject of a recently floated theory about the 2020 presidential election being influenced by China through the data of poll workers.
Texas nonprofit True the Vote spearheaded the theory that Konnech and Yu, who immigrated from China in the mid-1980s, were acting as Chinese government agents in the U.S. True the Vote, its founder Catherine Engelbrecht and member Gregg Phillips were all sued in September 2022 for racism, xenophobia, and defamation.
In the lawsuit, Konnech mentions Yu was subjected to death threats and denied claims that it has data (social security numbers, phone numbers, email addresses, and banking information) of 1.8 million U.S. poll workers. “Konnech does not, and has never, stored any actual customer or poll worker data on any server in China,” the company said.
Konnech told The New York Times that it only had data of 240,000 poll workers and that its Chinese subsidiary used dummy data for testing. But it looks like the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office has some evidence against Konnech and Yu, enough to warrant an arrest for the executive, nearly a month before the midterms.
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However, LA District Attorney George Gascón clarified, “This investigation is concerned solely with the personal identifying information of election workers. In this case, the alleged conduct had no impact on the tabulation of votes and did not alter election results.”
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office didn’t share details of their investigation on Konnech and Yu.
According to a Court document filed in Michigan and obtained by NPR, Yu is also charged with “the extraditable crime of Embezzlement of Public Funds” and that a witness has “probable cause to believe and suspect that the defendant is a fugitive from justice.”
Gascón added, “Data breaches are an ongoing threat to our digital way of life. When we entrust a company to hold our confidential data, they must be willing and able to protect our personal identifying information from theft. Otherwise, we are all victims.”
Commenting on Yu’s arrest, True the Vote said, “True the Vote was sued last month by Konnech to try to silence our organization, including obtaining an ex-parte TRO, conducted in secret so that True the Vote had no opportunity to contest it. This TRO limited True the Vote’s ability to speak on the litigation.”
“True the Vote is honored to have played a small role in what must have been a wide-ranging and complex investigation.” The nonprofit added that many reporters, who remain unnamed, “unblinkingly accepted their now discredited claims as fact, and simply repeated them.”
Besides arresting Yu, the LA District Attorney’s Office also seized hard drives and other digital evidence associated with PollChief. The legal party didn’t specify the type of data allegedly stolen by Konnech and Yu.
Konnech stated, “We are continuing to ascertain the details of what we believe to be Mr. Yu’s wrongful detention by LA County authorities. Any LA County poll worker data that Konnech may have possessed was provided to it by LA County, and therefore could not have been ‘stolen’ as suggested.”
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