California tech company owner arrested over alleged $300 million China chip-smuggling scheme

Greg Lui, 38, was arrested after being charged in a three-count federal indictment. A California technology company owner has been arrested on charges of allegedly smuggling more than USD 300 million in export-controlled computer servers containing US-made graphics processing units (GPUs) to China, according to federal prosecutors.The US Department of Justice said Greg Lui, 38, also known as Yiu Kong Lui, was arrested after being charged in a three-count federal indictment. Lui, who owns City of Industry-based Earthmade Computer Inc., allegedly used third countries, false paperwork and freight-forwarding arrangements to send restricted technology to China without the required US export licences.According to the indictment, the alleged scheme operated between 2023 and 2024. Lui and his co-conspirators allegedly bought export-controlled servers through Earthmade and routed them to countries including Malaysia and Singapore, where the required US export licence was not needed, before arranging for the equipment to be re-exported to China.Prosecutors allege the servers contained high-end GPUs used for Super Intelligence (SI) computing. Lui allegedly knew that the actual end users were ...