The DOJ arrested a San Leandro man and three others as part of an alleged conspiracy to evade US trade laws by smuggling powerful Nvidia GPUs and AI chips to China through Thailand and Malaysia. The man allegedly bragged that his dad did the same work for the CCP.
As Bay Area News Group reports, Cham “Tony” Li, 38, a Chinese national who lives in San Leandro, was arrested last week, along with three others who live in Florida and Alabama, for attempting to allegedly export millions of dollars worth of restricted top-of-the-line Nvidia technology to China.
Per a press release from the US Department Of Justice, the United States has strict regulations in place as China strives to fulfill its goal of becoming an AI world leader by 2030 by utilizing AI advancements to modernize its military, develop weapons of mass destruction, and deploy sophisticated surveillance tools. Nvidia, a Santa Clara-based company, is not involved with the case. Court Watch was the first to break the story.
So here’s the scoop: Prosecutors have charged four individuals — two Americans and two Chinese nationals with secretly smuggling hundreds of Nvidia chips and ten HP supercomputers from the US to China. pic.twitter.com/cMBrYedfJ1
— Seamus Hughes (@SeamusHughes) November 20, 2025
Li, along with Hon Ning “Matthew” Ho, 34, a US citizen who was born in Hong Kong and lives in Tampa, Florida, are suspected of using a shell company called Janford Realtor to funnel almost $4 million from two unnamed Hong Kong-registered Chinese companies, per Bay Area News Group, to purchase and then export the restricted computer GPUs and chips, per CNBC. Ho is considered the “ringleader” of the operation, per Wired.
Jing “Harry” Chen, 45, a Chinese national on an F-1 nonimmigrant student visa who also lives in Tampa, Florida, is listed as helping Li and Ho with the operation. Additionally, Brian Curtis Raymond, 46, a US citizen in Huntsville, Alabama, allegedly used his company Bitworks Technology, a legal reseller of Nvidia chips, to help with the export, per Forbes.
The group successfully carried out two exports between October 2024 and January 2025 when they shipped 400 Nvidia A100 processors through Malaysia to China, per the press release. The third and fourth exports were thwarted earlier this year when law enforcement caught them allegedly trying to ship 50 Nvidia H200 processors and 10 Hewlett Packard supercomputers containing Nvidia H100 chips to China through Thailand, per CNBC.
“The indictment unsealed yesterday alleges a deliberate and deceptive effort to transship controlled NVIDIA GPUs to China by falsifying paperwork, creating fake contracts, and misleading U.S. authorities,” said John A. Eisenberg, Assistant Attorney General for National Security in DOJ’s press release. “The National Security Division is committed to disrupting these kinds of black markets of sensitive U.S. technologies and holding accountable those who participate in this illicit trade.”
Per Wired, during their investigation, authorities obtained text messages in which Li talked about how his father “had engaged in similar business on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party” and knew how to get around export restrictions. He also allegedly admitted to “various facts” during questioning.
Li, Ho, and Chen are all in custody, and Li is scheduled to be arraigned December 4 in Tampa. Raymond was released on bond and won’t be detained, per Wired.
Per CNBC, Raymond was the chief technology officer of a tech company in Virginia that was about to become publicly traded, but he’s no longer employed there.
Top image: A closeup of a silicon wafer on display at Taiwan Semiconductor Research Institution on September 16, 2022 in Hsinchu, Taiwan. Taiwan's semiconductor manufacturing capabilities are crucial to global supply chains, with megacap companies like Apple, Nvidia and Qualcomm heavily dependent on the island's exports. (Photo by Annabelle Chih/Getty Images)
