Israeli police probe hi-tech info theft

Israel police investigators have detained a man suspected of stealing hi-tech secrets from his employer during the goodbye bash the company threw him.

Investigators from the National Fraud Unit refused to identify the company or the 31-year-old Givatayim resident they were holding, according to a report in the Israeli business magazine Globes.

The man had reportedly resigned from his position in the company after finding a better job.

Police did reveal that the man had been "one of the pillars of programming at the company," the report said. The investigators told the newspaper they believe he wrote the program to collect sensitive company information for use at his next job as his co-workers organized his farewell party.

"The program even included an order for sending the information collected from the company's computers to an overseas storage server," the report said.

The man, who told police he just wanted a copy of what he'd worked on, was also close friends with the company's chief executive officer, according to the report.

The company discovered the security breach quickly, and the CEO even asked the suspect to help locate the break-in, but the man allegedly used this opportunity to erase his program and tell his boss it had been an outside job, the report said.

Copyright 2006 by United Press International