Singapore police arrested three men on Thursday, February 27, charging them with fraud after uncovering a scheme to smuggle NVIDIA GPUs to China. This came after a major operation on Wednesday, where the Singapore Police Force and Singapore Customs raided 22 locations across the country.
According to CNA, nine people were nabbed during the raids, but only three faced charges so far. The police confiscated documents and electronics to dig deeper into the smuggling plot.
The three charged include two Singaporeans, Aaron Woon Guo Jie, 41, and Alan Wei Zhaolun, 49, who are accused of tricking a server supplier in 2024. They falsely claimed the NVIDIA gear wouldn’t end up with anyone other than the approved buyers.
The third suspect, a Chinese national named Li Ming, 51, got caught for lying in 2023, saying the chips were going to a company called Luxuriate Your Life, turns out, that was a fake story.
The US has been cracking down on NVIDIA GPU smuggling because they don’t want China getting their hands on this tech. The NVIDIA chips are super powerful graphics processing units used for gaming and Artificial Intelligence. By smuggling these chips to china accused were breaking the strict US export laws.
If convicted of fraud, these three could face up to 20 years in prison, a fine, or both. The police are still investigating the other six suspects and the companies tied to the smuggling ring. Singapore Customs is also checking if the group broke laws under the Customs Act and the Regulation of Imports & Exports Act.
Singapore has become Nvidia’s second largest geographical source of revenue in 2024, many suspect that this happened because Nvidia’s GPUs were illegally re-exported from Singapore to China.
Nvidia denied all accusations saying that billing locations do not represent actual destination of GPUs. Nvidia released a statement which reads, “Customers use Singapore to centralize invoicing while our products are almost always shipped elsewhere, shipments to Singapore were less than 2% of fiscal year 2025 total revenue.”
Reports say the US Commerce Department is investigating a Chinese AI company, DeepSeek, for possibly using these banned chips. Singapore’s government has stepped in too.
On February 1, the Ministry of Trade and Industry warned US companies here to follow both Singapore and US laws. Then, on February 18, Second Minister for Trade and Industry Tan See Leng told parliament that Singapore won’t let businesses misuse the country to dodge export rules. Even though Singapore doesn’t have to enforce US restrictions, Dr. Tan said companies should still play by the rules if they apply.
Also Read: South Korea Bans DeepSeek AI Over Privacy Concerns
