Two American citizens and two Chinese nationals now face 50 years behind bars each for illegally exporting at least four shipments of Nvidia’s cutting-edge GPU chips and their AI technology to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the US Department of Justice (DoJ) said on Thursday.
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Four arrested for funneling Nvidia's restricted AI processors to Beijing in $4M scheme, facing 50-year sentences.
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China sought advanced GPUs for "weapons of mass destruction" development and next-gen surveillance systems.
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Smugglers created phony real estate company to purchase and ship hundreds of NVIDIA A100 GPUs via Southeast Asia, evading export controls.
The four US residents, all picked up by authorities on Wednesday, have been indicted on multiple counts, including smuggling, money laundering, and conspiracy to violate the US Export Control Reform Act (ECRA), which prohibits the sale and exporting of sensitive dual-use technology to foreign adversaries.
In total, the four men were said to have pocketed a cool $3.89 million in wire transfers, sent directly from Beijing to fund the unlawful scheme.
According to the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which led the investigations, the suspects, although aware of the laws, never obtained the required licensing to export the GPUs to China, and lied about their intended destination.
So here’s the scoop: Prosecutors have charged four individuals — two Americans and two Chinese nationals with secretly smuggling hundreds of Nvidia chips and ten HP supercomputers from the US to China.
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“The indictment unsealed yesterday alleges a deliberate and deceptive effort to transship controlled NVIDIA GPUs to China by falsifying paperwork, creating fake contracts, and misleading US authorities,” said John A. Eisenberg, Asst. Attorney General for National Security.
The Nvidia AI-powered chips in question include: 400 NVIDIA A100 GPUs; ten Hewlett Packard Enterprises supercomputers containing additional NVIDIA H100 GPUs; and another 50 NVIDIA H200 GPUs.
According to the indictment, “the PRC seeks to become the world leader in AI by 2030 and aims to use AI for its military modernization efforts” and is actively scheming to obtain “cutting-edge US technology” to do so.
This encompasses “the design and testing of weapons of mass destruction and the deployment of advanced AI surveillance tools,” it states.
400 NVIDIA GPUs made it to China
The crew was said to have sent the advanced GPUs to China in four separate shipments, going through Malaysia and Thailand to evade detention.
Two shipments containing the 400 Nvidia AI chips successfully took place between October 2024 and January 2025. The other two attempted shipments were disrupted by law enforcement.
The suspects, arrested in their home states, are listed as:
- Hon Ning Ho, aka “Mathew Ho,” US citizen, 34. Born in Hong Kong, living in Tampa, Florida.
- Brian Curtis Raymond, US citizen, 46, of Huntsville, Alabama.
- Cham Li, aka “Tony Li,” PRC national, 38, living in San Leandro, California.
- Jing Chen, aka “Harry Chen,” PRC national, 45. In US on F-1 non-immigrant student visa, living in Tampa, Florida.
Ho and Li are accused of setting up a fake real estate agency – Janford Realtor, LLC – to make the purchases and illegally export the GPUs, while Raymond is charged with selling the GPUs to Ho and Li via a Tampa-based real estate front using an electronics store he operated in Alabama.
If convicted, the DoJ says each of the four men could spend up to 50 years behind bars, broken down as: 20 years per ECRA violation; 10 years per smuggling count; and 20 years per money laundering count.
“The National Security Division is committed to disrupting these kinds of black markets of sensitive US technologies and holding accountable those who participate in this illicit trade,” Eisenberg said.
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