A spy novel

The building of the new eastern span of the Bay Bridge has many stories - including one right out of a spy novel.

And the plot has thickened with word that a former Caltrans engineer pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiracy after being caught by a Department of Homeland Security agent trying to smuggle high tech defense chips onto a ship owned by the same Chinese company that fabricated the new Bay Bridge span.

Philip Chohui He, 43, also known as Philip Hope, worked on the bridge project for 3 1/2 years before his arrest in 2011. He avoided the most serious of the smuggling and illegal export charges that could have sent him to prison for up to 20 years.

According to the feds, he had illegally purchased hundreds of integrated circuits with radiation-hardened memory microchips used in U.S. satellite technology.

He then allegedly tried to smuggle the chips out of the country in boxes marked "milk powder."
Adding to the intrigue, He was caught when he parked in a secure area at Long Beach Harbor where a ship owned by Zhenhua Port Machinery Co. Ltd., or ZPMC, was docked.

ZPMC - which is owned by the Chinese government - was also the fabricator of the huge steel tower and road decks for the new $6.4 billion Bay Bridge eastern span.

According to federal documents released Friday detailing He's crime, "One of the men that the defendant met with, L.Z., possessed a People's Republic of China passport and is affiliated with ZPMC.

"The second man, J.Y., is an individual with whom the defendant had communicated with previously, including the night before."

That would appear to be Jieyi "Jim" Yang, the ZPMC representative on the Bay Bridge project and the company's major contact in the U.S., who early last year said he had joined He at the Long Beach dock to help the engineer ship some personal belongings back to China.