Federal agents arrested a California tech CEO at gunpoint Wednesday for allegedly running a $300 million scheme to smuggle restricted American AI chips into China.
Greg Lui, 38, also known as “Yiu Kong Lui,” was taken into custody at the City of Industry headquarters of Earthmade Computers, the company he founded and allegedly used to funnel sensitive technology to Beijing in violation of U.S. Export laws. FBI and Department of Commerce agents tracked the San Gabriel resident as he drove his white-wrapped Tesla Cybertruck from his posh home to the company’s offices in a tidy industrial park, handcuffing him without a word after he arrived at work.
Federal prosecutors say Lui and his co-conspirators operated the scheme from 2023 to 2024, purchasing high-end computer servers containing Nvidia processors and routing them through Malaysia and Singapore to bypass licensing requirements. The items could make significant contributions to the Chinese military, according to federal regulations.
The alleged method was deliberate and documented. Lui and his conspirators used fake documents to show suppliers like Nvidia that the AI tech would go to destinations not requiring export licenses. After placing orders, they hired freight forwarding companies to ship processors to Malaysia and Singapore, then worked with contacts to reship the items to China.
Court papers reveal the financial scale: from January 2024 to October 2024 alone, Earthmade received more than $176 million from two Malaysia-based shipment companies. Prosecutors say Lui used a JP Morgan Chase account and Bank of America account, both based in Los Angeles, to move money for the operation.
The government’s evidence includes an email Lui sent to a conspirator in January 2024, in which he discussed a Malaysian transshipment company’s interest in buying 70 computer servers with the controlled AI tech. In that same message, he noted the laws against such sales. Later that month, he purchased 27 servers for roughly $7.6 million and sent them from Los Angeles to Kuala Lumpur. By March, one of his conspirators emailed a Malaysian official confirming the servers had been transshipped to China.
Lui now 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 on all charges, he could receive up to 50 years in prison. The U.S. Department of Commerce, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, and the FBI continue investigating the case.
Before his tech career, Lui built a very different business. In 2012, he co-founded Duo-Pot in Arcadia, a Chinese hot pot and dry pot restaurant known for ultra-spicy Sichuan dishes including spicy frog. The establishment closed in 2021, according to his LinkedIn page. He transitioned into tech with an eight-year career that began at Amplitude Tech Hosting Service, a Denver-based database colocation firm. In 2021, he founded Earthmade Computer, which also handled database colocation, computer processor procurement, and export.
The alleged profits funded a lavish lifestyle. Lui owns a nine-bedroom mansion in San Gabriel valued at nearly $2 million.
