A former employee of SoftBank Corp was arrested Tuesday for illegally taking information from the major Japanese wireless carrier on its ultrafast 5G technology before moving to a smaller rival company, police said.

The arrest of Kuniaki Aiba, who currently works for wireless operator Rakuten Mobile Inc., comes amid intensifying competition among mobile companies in Japan due partly to the government's pressure to cut subscription fees.

While Japan's three major mobile carriers -- SoftBank, NTT Docomo and KDDI -- launched 5G services, which enable the transmission of movie and other large capacity data at a faster speed than the 4G system, in March last year, Rakuten Mobile joined the race in September and still lags behind its bigger rivals.

Aiba, 45, is suspected of having transferred trade secrets from SoftBank by emailing information on the company's 5G technology to his own account on Dec. 31, 2019, when he was still working for the company, in violation of Japan's unfair competition prevention law, according to Tokyo police.

Soon after, he left SoftBank and joined the mobile business unit of e-commerce giant Rakuten Inc., according to investigative sources.

The police did not reveal whether Aiba has admitted to the allegations.

Source: ANNnewsCH