DOJ charges California tech owner with smuggling more than $300M in AI GPU servers to China

On Oct. 1, 2026, the Justice Department said Greg Lui — owner of City of Industry–based Earthmade Computer — was arrested on a federal indictment charging him with smuggling more than $300 million of export-controlled high-end GPU servers commonly used for AI to China via third countries.

Washington has been trying to keep the highest-end AI GPUs out of China with export rules. This is a concrete enforcement case — a California reseller, third-country routing, and a $300M+ alleged pipeline — not another policy speech.

On Thursday, 1 October 2026, the Justice Department said Greg Lui, 38, also known as “Yiu Kong Lui,” of San Gabriel, California, had been arrested. The department said he was expected to make a first appearance and be arraigned that afternoon. The case is a three-count federal indictment in the Central District of California, number 2:26-cr-00618-ODW. The indictment was returned on Sept. 29, 2026. The department says the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, and the FBI investigated. Those lines are the department’s press release. The page dates the announcement Thursday, October 1, 2026. It does not print an hour.

Who he is. The department says Lui owns Earthmade Computer Inc., a technology company in the City of Industry, in the San Gabriel Valley east of Los Angeles. It calls Earthmade a closely held corporation, which means a company owned by a small group rather than sold on a stock exchange. The indictment also calls him the chief executive officer and the registered agent of Earthmade. A registered agent is the person listed to receive lawsuits and official mail for the company. Ars Technica’s story, dated Oct. 2, 2026, 2:39 p.m., calls him the chief executive of Earthmade Computer. The page does not print a time zone next to that clock. The chief-executive title is in the indictment. The ownership line is the Justice Department’s.

The three counts. The first is conspiracy to violate the Export Control Reform Act and the Export Administration Regulations. The Act is the federal statute. The regulations are the Commerce Department rules that say some equipment needs a license before it can leave the United States. The second count is outbound smuggling: moving goods out of the country while knowing the export breaks the law. The third is conspiracy to commit money laundering: an agreement to move money that came from that smuggling in order to keep the scheme going. The indictment cites Title 50 of the U.S. Code, section 4819; Title 18, section 554; and Title 18, section 1956(h). Those counts are the indictment’s caption and the department’s summary of it.

What prosecutors allege. The department says that from 2023 to 2024, Lui and co-conspirators used Earthmade to buy high-end computer servers and send them to China without the licenses the Commerce Department requires. A GPU, short for graphics processing unit, is the chip in those servers that does the heavy math. The same kind of chip is used to train and run large artificial-intelligence models. The department says these were U.S.-made GPUs commonly used for Super Intelligence applications. Super Intelligence, shortened to SI, is the name the department uses for that advanced AI work. The alleged route was to ship the servers to countries such as Malaysia and Singapore, where that China license is not required, and then re-export them to China. Re-export means sending them on from the third country. The department says Lui knew the real end users were in China, and that he and others gave U.S. manufacturers false paperwork naming users and destinations that did not need a license. Freight forwarders, the companies that book the shipping, then moved the servers. Once the boxes were in Malaysia or Singapore, the department says, Lui and others worked to send them on to China. Those lines are the Justice Department’s.

What the first assistant U.S. attorney said. Bill Essayli, first assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, 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.” That sentence is his, in the press release. The word allegedly is his. It is the government’s accusation.

How much money the papers name. The indictment says the scheme involved illegally smuggling over $300 million worth of high-end computer servers, commonly used for artificial intelligence, to China. The Justice Department uses the same figure: more than $300 million. The department also says that from January 2024 to October 2024, Earthmade received more than $176 million from two Malaysia-based shipment companies as part of the scheme. The indictment splits that intake into over $80 million from one Malaysian company and $96 million from another. Those figures are allegations in the charging document and in the department’s account of it. A jury has not found them.

One order the department describes. In a January 2024 email, Lui told a conspirator that a Malaysian transshipment company wanted to buy 70 servers with export-restricted GPUs. Transshipment means the cargo lands in a third country and then leaves again. He attached an export form indicating the Malaysian company knew U.S. rules restricted the sale, transshipment, or export of those servers. Later that month he submitted a purchase order to a U.S. manufacturer for 27 of the servers, for about $7,614,000. He and a co-conspirator then caused the servers to be shipped from Los Angeles to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The packing list said the shipment held 27 servers with GPUs that were export-controlled and could not be sent to China without a license. The department says that in March 2024 a co-conspirator emailed a Malaysian government official that the 27 servers had been transshipped to a China-based buyer. The indictment is more specific on that example. It dates the email about 70 servers to Jan. 11, 2024, the purchase order to Jan. 30, 2024, and the shipment to Jan. 31, 2024, and it says those 27 servers contained Nvidia H100 GPUs. It dates the email to the Malaysian official to March 12, 2024, and says that email reported the servers had been transshipped to a Chinese purchaser. The indictment describes that purchaser as a Chinese industrial company based in Hangzhou. Those dates, the H100 name, and the Hangzhou description are the indictment’s allegations. The $7,614,000 figure, the Los Angeles to Kuala Lumpur route, and the China-based buyer are also in the department’s press release.

Which chips the indictment names. The charging document says the orders included servers with Nvidia A100 GPUs, H100 GPUs, PNY GeForce RTX 4090 GPUs, and GeForce RTX 5090 GPUs. It spells the third name “PNY GE Force RTX 4090.” It says those chips require a Commerce Department license for export to China, and that neither Lui nor Earthmade applied for, received, or held such a license. Ars Technica, summarizing the indictment, names the A100 and the H100. The model names are the indictment’s description of the chips in the servers. The caption charges Greg Lui. The department’s press release says the servers contained U.S.-manufactured GPUs. It does not print these model numbers.

What an FBI official said about the buyer. Roman Rozhavsky, assistant director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence and Espionage Division, said: “The FBI’s investigation revealed that 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.” That sentence is his, in the press release. It is his allegation. It is not a court finding. The indictment’s words for the buyer in the March 2024 example are a Chinese purchaser, described there as a Chinese industrial company in Hangzhou. That description is an allegation in the charging document.

How long each document says the scheme ran. The press release describes the buying and shipping as running from 2023 to 2024. The indictment alleges the export conspiracy began no later than about October 2023 and continued until at least Aug. 12, 2026. The August 2026 date is the indictment’s charging language. The press release does not use it.

What a conviction could carry. The department says that if Lui is convicted of all charges, the maximum penalties are 20 years in prison on the export-conspiracy count, 20 years on the money-laundering count, and 10 years on the smuggling count. A maximum is the top of the range the statute allows. It is not a sentence, and it is not a prediction.

The department’s closing line. “An indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.” Lui has been charged and arrested. He has not been convicted.

The picture is the top of the first page of that indictment. A white court page fills the frame, with a dark margin above and below. The header reads Case 2:26-cr-00618-ODW, Document 1, filed 09/29/26, page 1 of 22. A stamp on the page reads filed 9/29/2026. The caption is the United States District Court for the Central District of California, a June 2026 grand jury, and United States of America v. Greg Lui, also known as “Yiu Kong Lui.” The title is Indictment. The statute block still on the card begins the export-control conspiracy count, citing Title 50, section 4819, and the frame cuts off at the words “to Violate the Export Control.” It is the first page of the charging document. It is not a photograph of Lui, of a chip, or of a loading dock.

In plain terms, the Justice Department said on Thursday that it arrested Greg Lui, a San Gabriel man it identifies as the owner of Earthmade Computer in the City of Industry. Prosecutors allege he and others bought export-controlled servers built around U.S.-made AI chips, shipped them through Malaysia and Singapore, and sent them on to China without the required Commerce licenses. The papers put the servers at more than $300 million, and the department says Earthmade received more than $176 million from two Malaysian shippers between January and October 2024. One example is a January 2024 order of 27 servers for about $7.6 million that the department says was later described as transshipped to a buyer in China. The indictment names Nvidia A100, H100, RTX 4090, and RTX 5090 chips in the orders. An FBI official said Lui allegedly sold that technology to the Chinese government. That sentence is the official’s. The department says an indictment is an allegation, and that Lui is presumed innocent unless a court finds otherwise.