A former executive of Samsung Electronics has been arrested and indicted for stealing and leaking confidential information from the chip giant in an attempt to build a replica production facility in China.

The Suwon District Prosecutors' Office on Monday charged the former executive with violating industrial technology protection and unfair competition prevention laws.

Five employees of the former executive's chip manufacturing company in China and an employee of a Samsung subcontractor were indicted without pretrial detention for colluding in the alleged leak of key national technology.

The group is accused of illegally acquiring and using basic engineering data(BED), the process layout and design drawings of the Samsung’s chip plant with a total value of at least 300 billion won, or around 230 million U.S. dollars, between August 2018 and February 2019.

The former executive, who had founded chip manufacturing firms in China and Singapore, was allegedly trying to construct the replica facility only one-point-five kilometers away from Samsung's NAND flash plant in Xian, China.

While that plan fell through after a Taiwanese investor backed out, the former executive reportedly produced trial products using Samsung's chip technology after securing 460 billion won in investment from the Cheongdu city government.