United States federal prosecutors have filed criminal charges Monday against three Chinese researchers for allegedly disclosing confidential information from a federally funded study to Chinese competitors in exchange for tuition, rent and other expenses

The researchers were working at the New York University Langone Medical Center (NYULMU).

Two of the three researchers, Dr. Yudong Zhu, 44, and 31-year-old lab engineer, Xing Yang, were released on bail by the Manhattan Federal Court. They were arrested on Sunday.

However, the third accused, a 31-year-old postdoctoral fellow, Ye Li, has escaped the law and is believed to have flown out of the country to China before the charges were laid.

The charges allege that the three researchers provided classified information on magnetic resonance imaging to a Chinese medical company - United Imaging Healthcare and a research institute supported by the Chinese government, the Shenzen Institute of Advanced Technology. All three researchers failed to reveal their affiliation with these companies to the university.

Dr. Zhu is a successful researcher and trendsetter in the field of MRI technology. He was employed as an associate professor of radiology at NYULMU from 2008.

Three years ago, Zhu received a five-year multimillion-dollar fellowship from the National Institutes of Health for his research related to innovations in M.R.I. technology. For this project, he hired Yang and Li as his assistants.

Their misconduct was discovered, last month, when security cameras captured Yang taking photos of equipment from one research area and their subsequent emails proved that Zhu and Yang collaborated with United Imaging about MRI equipment prototypes, experiments and project updates.

In return of the favour, Zhu is said to have asked United Imaging to take care of Yang and Li's financial expenses including tuition for Yang and rent for Li.

When Li was questioned about the fraud, he said that he was paid thousands of dollars, this year, by the Chinese institute for his work on the MRI project.

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara referred to the three men as 'foxes in the henhouse' who defrauded the university. NYULMU has suspended all the three researchers.

If found guilty, Li and Yang might face up to maximum of five years in prison, while Zhu faces 20 years on a separate charge of adulterating records related to his federal grant from the National Institutes of Health worth $4 million.