A Chinese man accused of stealing trade secrets from three US biotech seed companies pleaded guilty in an Iowa federal court in January. Prosecutors had alleged that the man, Mo Hailong, also known as Robert Mo, stole proprietary seeds from Monsanto, DuPont Pioneer and LG Seeds in an attempt to benefit his Chinese conglomerate, Beijing Dabeinong Technology Group Company (DBN Group) (Nat. Biotechnol. 32, 607–608, 2014). Mo was one of seven people connected to DBN who were accused of agricultural espionage. US prosecutors say the group was after the seed companies' 'inbred' or 'parent' lines of corn, which can take five to eight years and millions of dollars to develop. Seed companies take many precautions to protect this technology, but open fields present a security challenge. Mo in May 2011 was found digging in a field in rural Iowa where inbred seeds belonging to Johnston, Iowa–based DuPont Pioneer had been planted the day before, prosecutors said. “The guilty plea was a small win for the industry, but I doubt it prevents it from happening again,” says Kendall Lamkey, a professor of agronomy at Iowa State University in Ames, who consulted with US attorneys on seed production and corn breeding. The performance of corn in China lags the US considerably, and the Chinese company appeared to be trying to catch up by stealing the seeds, he says. Charla Lord, a spokesperson for St. Louis–based Monsanto, says the company is pleased the matter is concluded. “Monsanto appreciates all of the efforts that have been taken by the US government to protect our intellectual property,” she says. In exchange for Mo pleading guilty to conspiracy to steal trade secrets, the government agreed to dismiss a theft charge levied against him, and to cut his maximum possible jail sentence to five years. “This is a complicated case with many gray areas, legally and factually, but today Robert Mo takes complete responsibility for his unlawful conduct in this case,” says Mo's attorney Mark Weinhardt at Weinhardt & Logan in Des Moines, Iowa. Mo is a US permanent resident, and has a wife and two children who are US citizens. Five of his alleged conspirators remain fugitives, and charges against one other—Mo's sister Mo Yun—were dropped.