캘리포니아 주민 Greg Lui가 U.S. 수출 규제를 위반하여 Nvidia AI 서버 $300 million 상당을 중국으로 밀반출한 혐의로 체포되었습니다.

On October 1, 2026, Greg Lui, 38, owner of California-based Earthmade Computer, was arrested on charges of sending servers equipped with Nvidia chips worth more than $300 million to China while circumventing U.S. export controls. A grand jury indictment filed September 29 in the Central District of California alleges that Lui routed the shipments through Malaysia and Singapore to evade the requirement for export licenses.

**The Charges and Penalties**

The indictment (case 2:26-cr-00618) contains three counts: conspiracy to violate the Export Control Reform Act and its implementing regulations (the Export Administration Regulations), smuggling goods out of the country in violation of those rules, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. The maximum penalties are 20 years on the first conspiracy count, 10 years on smuggling, and 20 years on the money laundering conspiracy. John A. Eisenberg, assistant attorney general for national security, stated in the DOJ release: "SI is the defining technology of the era"—using the department's term for artificial superintelligence.

**The Company and Funding**

Earthmade was incorporated November 10, 2023 in City of Industry, near Los Angeles, with Lui serving as chief executive. Prosecutors allege the company ordered servers with Nvidia GPUs from three unnamed U.S. manufacturers, falsely declaring that end buyers were in Malaysia and Singapore, countries requiring no export license. From January through October 2024, Earthmade allegedly collected $80 million from one Malaysian company and $96 million from another—a total of $176 million. The first firm, founded in 1999, dealt in timber, plywood, and panels; the second is described as a front company. The ultimate recipient would be an industrial group in Hangzhou, which the indictment never names.

**The Alleged Route and Transactions**

On January 30, 2024, Lui allegedly ordered 27 servers with H100 GPUs for approximately $7.6 million. They left Los Angeles the next day and reached Kuala Lumpur; on March 12, an unindicted co-conspirator wrote to a Malaysian government official confirming the machines had been passed on to the Chinese buyer.

On June 15, 92 servers from a larger order of 512 machines quoted April 30 departed San Francisco International Airport on Singapore Airlines flight SQ0033 to Kuala Lumpur, then transferred to Cathay Pacific flight CX722 to Hong Kong, with the Chinese company listed as the consignee.

On July 2, an order of 100 servers with H100 chips, valued at more than $22 million, allegedly shipped through a U.S. company used as a front. The buyer was listed as Topmost, with a director identified as Jackie Lui, described in the indictment as appearing in documents alleged to be false. The indictment further alleges that in 2021 Lui bought a person's identity documents and used that identity in transactions related to the scheme.

**The Controlled Technology**

The indictment names Nvidia A100 and H100 GPUs (data center accelerators) and PNY GeForce RTX 4090 and RTX 5090 cards, all falling under ECCN 4A090.a of the Commerce control list, which requires licenses for exports to China. Under the Export Administration Regulations, Hong Kong is treated the same as mainland China. The Commerce Department introduced controls on advanced chips October 7, 2022, and extended them with rules effective November 17, 2023. According to prosecutors, neither Lui nor Earthmade ever applied for an export license for any destination.

The mechanism alleged is direct: declaring Malaysia and Singapore as final destinations required no license. The subsequent re-export to China, which does require one, allegedly occurred afterward, with export filings filled out with false classification codes to obscure the nature of the goods.

**Unresolved Questions**

The three U.S. manufacturers are identified only as "US Manufacturer 1, 2 and 3," with the sales manager at the first manufacturer cited as "Unindicted Co-Conspirator 1." An executive at a U.S. freight forwarder is designated "Unindicted Co-Conspirator 5." Nvidia is not a party to the case and provided no comment; the company manufactures the GPUs but did not design or assemble the servers. The financial figures in the indictment are inconsistent: the introduction refers to "more than $300 million" and paragraph 36 to "nearly three hundred million" in servers brokered, while the scheme period runs from "no later than October 2023" to "at least August 12, 2026" across the various counts.

**Context**

This case follows a November 2025 DOJ indictment of four individuals for a smaller operation involving $3.89 million in wire transfers from China and A100 GPUs routed through Malaysia and Thailand. The broader geopolitical backdrop includes Beijing's criticism of proposed AI restrictions and China's concurrent development of domestic alternatives, including Huawei's Atlas 960E supercomputer and Alibaba's Zhenwu V900 chip. Nevertheless, the indictment demonstrates that Nvidia chips remain in high demand, even as controls are enforced.