A San Gabriel man was arrested Thursday on federal charges alleging he smuggled more than $300 million worth of export-controlled computer servers containing high-end graphics processing units to China, federal prosecutors announced.
Greg Lui, 38, also known as Yiu Kong Lui, is expected to make his initial appearance and be arraigned Friday in federal court in downtown Los Angeles, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Lui was charged in a three-count indictment with conspiracy to violate the Export Control Reform Act and Export Administration Regulations, outbound smuggling and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
According to an indictment returned by a federal grand jury Tuesday, Lui owns Earthmade Computer Inc., a City of Industry-based technology company.
Prosecutors allege that from 2023 to 2024, Lui and his co-conspirators used Earthmade to purchase export-controlled computer servers containing U.S.-manufactured GPUs and send them to China without licenses required by the U.S. Department of Commerce.
The servers were allegedly shipped first to countries including Malaysia and Singapore, where such licenses were not required, and then re-exported to China.
“This defendant allegedly used false paperwork and shipments through third countries to smuggle more than $300 million in export-controlled computer servers to China,” First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said. “We will aggressively prosecute those who put our national security at risk for profit.”
Prosecutors allege Lui and his co-conspirators provided false documentation to U.S. manufacturers stating the equipment was destined for permissible end users and destinations that did not require export licenses.
Earthmade received more than $176 million from two Malaysia-based companies involved in shipments between January and October 2024 as part of the alleged scheme, according to the indictment.
In one instance cited by prosecutors, Lui allegedly submitted a purchase order in January 2024 to a U.S. manufacturer for 27 servers valued at about $7.6 million. Lui and a co-conspirator allegedly arranged for the servers to be shipped from Los Angeles to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
The shipment’s packing list indicated the servers contained export-controlled GPUs that could not be sent to China without a license, prosecutors said. In March 2024, a co-conspirator allegedly emailed a Malaysian government official stating that the 27 servers had been transshipped to a China-based buyer.
Lui faces statutory maximum sentences of 20 years in federal prison on the export-control conspiracy count, 20 years on the money laundering conspiracy count and 10 years on the smuggling count if convicted, according to prosecutors.