Fired Intel Engineer Steals 18,000 Files, Then Disappears

One of the many thousands of Intel employees let go this year is being sued by Intel for $250,000 after allegedly stealing over 18,000 files from Intel servers, some of which are reportedly top secret in nature. Intel hopes to recover this data, but to date, the engineer hasn’t responded to any communication attempts and cannot be located.
After being appointed Intel’s CEO in March 2025, Lip Bu-Tan went on a firing spree, trimming Intel’s global workforce. He ultimately pivoted Intel toward third-party chip design and fabrication, as well as creating its own next-generation processors for desktop, mobile, and data centers. That has resulted in the company cutting over 35,000 jobs, but it seems some terminated employees aren’t taking that lying down.
Software engineer Jinfeng Luo, who started at Intel in 2014, was one of those let go this last July. After receiving notice, he reportedly spent several days downloading company files to his external NAS device. He is alleged to have stolen some 18,000 documents in total, some of which Intel had marked as extremely sensitive, according to Mercury News.
Luo initially connected his company laptop to the system and tried to download files directly that way, but Intel’s internal controls blocked the transfer. However, it seemingly didn’t report the action in a way that would have stopped Luo, as he was able to continue making download attempts, some of which were ultimately successful.
Intel has phoned, emailed, and sent letters to Luo demanding the return of the files and has now taken legal action against him. Luo hasn’t responded to any communication attempts, however, and has yet to respond to the lawsuit directly or via a lawyer. He has, by most measures, disappeared.
“Luo has refused to even engage with Intel,” the lawsuit claims, “let alone return the files.” Intel is now hoping the courts will help track Luo down, but so far, he doesn’t appear to want to be found.
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