DOJ: San Gabriel Businessman Arrested in Alleged $300 Million Smuggling of Nvidia Servers to China
LOS ANGELES, Oct. 1 — Federal agents on Oct. 1 arrested businessman Greg Lui, who prosecutors allege used Earthmade Computer Inc. of San Gabriel to buy export-controlled computer servers containing Nvidia GPUs from U.S. manufacturers, falsified documentation, and routed the equipment through Singapore and Malaysia to China, according to the Justice Department and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California. Prosecutors put the total hardware value at more than $300 million and place the alleged conduct in 2023 and 2024.
The indictment carries three counts — conspiracy to violate the Export Control Reform Act and the Export Administration Regulations (up to 20 years), conspiracy to commit money laundering (up to 20 years) and outbound smuggling (up to 10 years) — a combined statutory maximum of up to 50 years. These are ceilings, not expected outcomes; sentences are set by a judge. The investigation was conducted by the FBI's Counterintelligence and Espionage Division, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service and the Commerce Department's Office of Export Enforcement, with a Justice Department National Security Division trial attorney assigned alongside assistant U.S. attorneys.
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said the defendant allegedly used false paperwork and third-country shipments to smuggle the servers. The department notes that an indictment is only an allegation and the defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty; as of Oct. 3 no trial date had been made public and no defense response had been entered on the docket. Earlier Southern California charges against two Chinese nationals over Nvidia hardware exports form the backdrop of this latest chip-smuggling case.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Attorney's Office (C.D. Cal.) announcement, Oct. 1; follow-up reporting Oct. 2 by the Wall Street Journal, Reuters and others.
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Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
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