For those who came in late, Apple’s project Titan has never got off the ground because Jobs’ Mob’s business model of having car companies give Apple all their profits did not attract any interest.

Jizhong Chen was seen by a fellow Apple employee taking photographs 11 January inside a secure work space that houses the company's autonomous car project.

This broke his oath of secrecy to the Apple cult which he signed when he was hired.

Prosecutors said Chen admitted to taking the photos and backing up some 2,000 files to his personal hard drive, including manuals and schematics for the project.

He then applied for a job with a China-based autonomous vehicle company and forgot to mention it to Apple.

When called into to have a word with Apple’s black shirted security investigators, Chen told Apple investigators he had taken the pictures to support applications for jobs within the company after supervisors tagged him with a performance improvement plan.

When Apple learned he was seeking employment with a Chinese rival, he was suspended.

The company that Zhang was working for, Xiaopeng Motors, said Zhang had not told it any sensitive Apple information.