Two agricultural scientists from China are accused of conspiring to take seeds from a research facility in Kansas and pass them to a Chinese delegation visiting the US.
At a detention hearing on Friday in Arkansas, a judge ordered one of the scientists, Wengui Yan, to remain in custody.
The other, Weiqiang Zhang, is set to have a hearing on Tuesday in Kansas.
Yan and Zhang are charged with conspiracy to steal trade secrets.
Prosecutors say the pair arranged for a Chinese delegation to visit the US and that customs agents later found stolen seeds in the delegation's luggage as it was preparing to return to China.
US Magistrate Judge J. Thomas Ray said, "There is a strong inference from the complaint that Doctor Yan and his co-defendant were involved in a conspiracy to try to get advanced agricultural technology into the hands of the delegation that they helped to invite into the country."
Also this week, prosecutors in Iowa said six men from China, including the chief executive of a seed corn subsidiary of a Chinese conglomerate, were charged with conspiring to steal patented seed corn from two of the US's leading seed developers.
Seed developers spend millions of dollars a year to develop varieties and carefully protect them against theft to maintain a competitive advantage.
Yan worked for the Department of Agriculture as a research geneticist at the Dale Bumpers National Rice Research Center in Arkansas, and Zhang worked as an agricultural seed breeder for a biopharmaceutical company that has a production facility in Junction City, Kansas, according to a court document.
Prosecutors said the business where Zhang worked invested about $75 million in technology used to create seeds.
Zhang allegedly took seeds his employer had grown and kept them at his home in Kansas.
If convicted, Zhang and Yan could face up to 10 years in federal prison and a fine of up to about $A281,000.
