Federal agents arrested California tech CEO Greg Lui over an alleged scheme to move more than $300 million in restricted AI chips to China, a case prosecutors tie to U.S. national security rules.
FBI and Department of Commerce agents took Lui into custody Wednesday at the City of Industry headquarters of Earthmade Computers, the firm he founded and runs, after tracking him from his San Gabriel home.
Prosecutors say the 38-year-old used the company to buy high-end servers packed with Nvidia AI processors, ship them through Malaysia and Singapore on paperwork that hid the real end point, then move the gear into China without the licenses U.S. law requires.
He faces one count of conspiracy to violate the Export Control Reform Act, one count of smuggling, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. If convicted, he faces up to 50 years in prison.
Agents followed Lui from a nine-bedroom San Gabriel mansion valued at nearly $2 million. He was driving a Tesla Cybertruck with a white wrap when they closed in at Earthmade’s offices in a tidy industrial park.
They arrested him at gunpoint, handcuffed him, searched him, and put him in a vehicle for processing. Lui did not speak during the arrest, the New York Post reported.
The U.S. Department of Commerce, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, and the FBI are investigating the case.
Court papers and prosecutors describe a scheme running from 2023 into 2024. Lui and unnamed co-conspirators allegedly used Earthmade to purchase American-made AI graphics processors that need Commerce Department licenses for export because the technology can strengthen China’s military.
The alleged method was straightforward on paper and illegal in practice. Fake documents listed destinations that did not require those licenses. Freight forwarders moved the servers to Malaysia and Singapore. From there, prosecutors say, the hardware was re-exported to China.
Earthmade’s own profile describes work in database colocation, processor procurement, and export. Prosecutors say that business cover became the vehicle for the alleged trafficking.
Court papers detail a concrete stretch of the alleged plot in early 2024. In January, Lui emailed a conspirator about a Malaysian transshipment company that wanted 70 computer servers loaded with the controlled AI technology. In that same message, he noted the laws against selling such tech.
Later that month he bought 27 of the servers for roughly $7.6 million and shipped them from Los Angeles to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Two months later, one of Lui’s conspirators told a Malaysian official by email that the servers had in fact been transshipped to China.
From January 2024 to October 2024, Earthmade received more than $176 million from two Malaysia-based shipment companies as part of the alleged scheme, court papers state.
Prosecutors say Lui used Los Angeles-area accounts at JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America to send and receive money that kept the operation going. The overall allegation put before the public is that more than $300 million in restricted AI chips moved through the pipeline.
The regulations at issue exist for a reason: U.S. officials have long warned that advanced American AI hardware can give the Chinese military a direct lift. Export controls are supposed to block that transfer. This case is about whether a California company became a cutout to defeat those controls for profit.
Lui’s path into tech was not a straight line. In 2012 he co-founded Duo-Pot, an Arcadia Chinese hot pot and dry pot restaurant known for spicy frog dishes. The restaurant closed in 2021, the same year he founded Earthmade Computer.
His earlier tech work included a stint at Amplitude Tech Hosting Service, a Denver firm focused on database colocation. LinkedIn material cited in reporting puts his tech career at about eight years. By the time of the arrest he was living in a large San Gabriel home and running a company that handled serious processor procurement.
Nvidia, the Santa Clara company whose AI processors sit at the center of the case, is a global leader in the chips that power modern artificial intelligence. Those chips are exactly the kind of dual-use technology export rules are written to police.
The Export Control Reform Act and related Commerce rules are not paperwork theater. They exist to keep advanced U.S. computing power out of the hands of the Chinese military and out of programs that undercut American security.
Prosecutors say Lui knew the sales were illegal and pushed ahead anyway. The alleged use of third-country transshipment through Malaysia and Singapore is a classic evasion pattern: route the goods through places that look clean on the shipping documents, then move them to the real buyer.
No injuries were reported in the arrest. Co-conspirators have not been named in the public account of the case. Specific Nvidia server models, the full charging documents, bail status, and any defense statement beyond Lui’s silence at the scene were not detailed in the initial reporting.
When American AI hardware is allegedly routed to China through shell paperwork and overseas cutouts, export controls stop being a policy debate and become an enforcement test, and the public has every right to expect that test to be enforced.
