Nvidia GPU Smuggling Case Rocks Tech World with $300M Alleged Export Violations
A California tech executive, Greg Lui, also known as Yiu Kong Lui, is facing federal charges over an alleged scheme to route more than $300 million worth of Nvidia-equipped servers into China. The U.S. Department of Justice announced the indictment on October 1, 2026.
Lui allegedly used his company, Earthmade Computer Inc., to disguise shipments of export-controlled Nvidia GPUs through Malaysia, Singapore, and Hong Kong before the hardware reached buyers in China. According to court filings, Lui submitted falsified paperwork claiming the hardware was headed to permitted buyers in Malaysia or Singapore, when in fact it was being rerouted to customers in China without the required export licenses.
The indictment names Nvidia's A100 and H100 data-center accelerators, as well as GeForce RTX 4090 and RTX 5090 consumer gaming cards. These GPUs are powerful enough to train large language models at meaningful scale, which is exactly the capability U.S. export rules were written to keep out of Chinese hands.