Former Citadel Employee Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets by U.S. Attorney's Office

In an unfortunately named case of United States v. Pu, the government has charged Yiaho "Ben" Pu of stealing trade secrets from the Chicago-based investment firm named Citadel LLC. Mr. Pu is only 24 years old.

Bloomberg's BusinessWeek is reporting that Citadel hired Pu last year to help develop proprietary- trading strategies for the $11 billion hedge fund. Citadel officials allegedly discovered Pu copying company data onto a removable storage device.

Pu made an initial appearance yesterday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Maria Valdez. He is being held in federal custody while awaiting a detention hearing scheduled for tomorrow, according to prosecutors.