Chinese National and Two U.S. Citizens Charged With Conspiring to Smuggle AI Chips to China in $170 Million Scheme
On March 25, 2026, the Justice Department announced that a Chinese national and two U.S. citizens had been charged with conspiring to commit smuggling and export control violations: the three allegedly sought servers containing export-controlled AI chips from a California-based computer hardware company for shipment to China through Thailand-based front companies. The defendants are Stanley Yi Zheng, 56, of Hong Kong; Matthew Kelly, 49, of Hopewell Junction, New York; and Tommy Shad English, 53, of Atlanta, Georgia.
According to the criminal complaints, beginning in or about May 2023 the three used Thailand-based companies as the purported purchasers of servers from the California company, referred to as Company-1, while intending the chips' ultimate destination to be China. In October 2023 English ordered 750 servers for approximately $170 million, 600 of them containing a chip on the Commerce Control List that required a license for export to China, and signed a false Advanced Computing Certification; in January 2024 he transferred over $20 million as partial payment. Compliance reviews by Company-1 and the chip maker, Company-2, then flagged that Zheng's company was based in China, and a second attempted order of 500 servers also failed; neither deal was completed. Messages in a group chat titled "GPU Partnership" showed Zheng instructing the others: "DO NOT MENTION ANYTHING ABOUT CHINA."
The criminal complaints were issued in the Northern District of Georgia on March 20, 2026. Zheng was arrested on March 22 and appeared in the Northern District of California on March 23; Kelly and English surrendered to federal authorities on March 25. The case is being investigated by the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, Homeland Security Investigations and the FBI. The charges are merely accusations, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：位于华盛顿的美国司法部总部大楼入口标志，本案由司法部国家安全司与佐治亚州北区联邦检察官办公室起诉。G. Edward Johnson 摄，CC BY 4.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: The entrance sign of the U.S. Department of Justice headquarters in Washington; this case is prosecuted by the National Security Division and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Georgia. Photo by G. Edward Johnson, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
