Greg Lui, a 38-year-old San Gabriel resident who owns Earthmade Computer Inc. in City of Industry, California, is accused of using the company to obtain export-controlled servers containing Nvidia graphics processing units, or GPUs, and route them to China. The alleged scheme operated between 2023 and 2024.
According to the charges, Lui and his co-conspirators submitted false documents to US manufacturers that misrepresented the equipment’s eventual destination. They allegedly sent servers through Malaysia and Singapore, then re-exported them to China without the licences required by the US Commerce Department.
The case centres on whether those transactions were deliberately structured to evade US export controls and conceal China as the true destination of restricted artificial intelligence technology. The Justice Department indictment describes alleged use of false documents and complex transshipment arrangements to evade US export laws.
In one example, Lui allegedly placed a purchase order for 27 servers containing Nvidia H100 GPUs, at a cost of approximately $7.6 million. The servers were shipped from Los Angeles to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, before being transshipped to a buyer in China.
Earthmade received more than $176 million from two Malaysia-based shipment companies between January and October 2024, authorities allege.
Lui was arrested on Thursday and charged with conspiracy to violate US export controls, outbound smuggling and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Prosecutors allege that the shipments through Malaysia and Singapore involved more than US$300 million worth of restricted computer servers.
Federal prosecutors asked for Lui to remain in custody while the case proceeds, arguing that he posed a flight risk.
Bill Essayli, the First Assistant US Attorney, said: “This defendant allegedly used false paperwork and shipments through third countries to smuggle more than $300 million in export-controlled computer servers to China”.
John A. Eisenberg, the assistant attorney general for national security, said: “These chips are the product of American ingenuity” and “The National Security Division will continue to enforce our export-control laws to protect that advantage.”
A conviction on all three counts could carry sentences of up to 20 years on each of the two conspiracy charges and as many as 10 years on the smuggling count.
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