The FBI arrested California tech CEO Greg Lui — also known as Yiu Kong Lui — 38, on charges of smuggling more than $300 million in export-controlled AI servers with U.S.-made GPUs to China via Malaysia and Singapore, using false paperwork to evade American export controls.
Federal agents took Lui into custody on October 1 at the City of Industry headquarters of Earthmade Computers, the company he founded and runs, after tracking him from his San Gabriel home. A federal grand jury had returned the indictment on September 29. Lui faces three counts: conspiracy to violate the Export Control Reform Act and Export Administration Regulations, outbound smuggling, and conspiracy to commit money laundering — charges that together carry a maximum sentence of decades in prison if he is convicted. Prosecutors are seeking detention without bail, arguing he poses a serious flight risk.
According to the indictment, Lui and his co-conspirators used Earthmade between 2023 and 2024 to buy high-end servers containing U.S.-manufactured graphics processing units and send them to China without the required Commerce Department licenses. The shipments were presented as destined for Malaysia and Singapore, where the same export licenses were not required; false documents supplied to U.S. manufacturers identified permissible buyers and destinations, after which freight-forwarding companies moved the servers onward to China. The hardware allegedly included Nvidia A100 and H100 GPUs — processors used for large-scale AI computing. Prosecutors say Lui knew the actual end users were in China, and court documents indicate he received more than $176 million in payments from two Malaysian transshipment companies.
"Protecting America's national security means keeping our advanced Super Intelligence technology from being used to strengthen our adversaries' military capabilities," said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli. "This defendant allegedly used false paperwork and shipments through third countries to smuggle more than $300 million in export-controlled computer servers to China. We will aggressively prosecute those who put our national security at risk for profit." FBI Counterintelligence official Roman Rozhavsky said the investigation revealed Lui allegedly sold the Chinese government "hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of American Super Intelligence technology, in clear violation of U.S. export control laws."
Investigators say the advanced chips could have been put to use by the Chinese military, given AI's growing role in modern warfare. Nvidia, for its part, said: "This case shows yet again that smuggling is a losing proposition — legally, economically and technically." The charges mark the latest in a series of federal prosecutions aimed at keeping advanced U.S.-made chips out of Chinese hands — and one of the largest alleged AI hardware smuggling schemes to date.