A Chinese national, Xiang Li, has been sentenced to 12 years in prison in the United States for selling stolen software worth $100 million.
Xiang Li is accused of stealing software from 200 American manufactures and selling them for a fraction of its actual price, BBC News reported on Wednesday.
Li was arrested in June 2011 from an area in the U.S. Pacific territory of Saipan and the accused pleaded guilty earlier this year.
Officials in the U.S. said that this is the first time that a Chinese national has been prosecuted in the country for a piracy- related crime.
The Chinese national were accused of stealing software from Microsoft, SAP, Oracle and Rockwell Automation.
Li hacked into the systems to steal software from these companies and then put them up on his own website for sale. His website offered more than 2,000 pirated titles, according to the U.S. prosecutors.
Li sold the pirated software for as little as $20 to up to $1200 while the original prices of the products were said to be much more higher- ranging from several hundred dollars to more than one million dollars apiece, the U.S. officials claimed.
Through emails, Li transferred the pirated programs to his customers and collected payments through money transfer services.
The Chinese man was arrested by the authorities after a U.S. manufacturer discovered that his company's software was being sold on Li's website and informed the authorities.
Li will be deported to China only after completing the prison term in the United States.
The U.S. government in a report last month had accused China of being the world's largest source of intellectual property (IP) theft.
Dennis Blair, President Obama's former director of national intelligence, and Jon Huntsman, former U.S. Ambassador to China, who were in charge of the study said that the United States was losing around $300 billion every year because of IP theft.
The study added that China was behind 50-80% of the theft.
The United States and China have recently been involved in a blame game about cyber stalking. However, Beijing has constantly denied all the accusations saying China itself is a victim of foreign cyber attacks.
