US Charges 4 People With Illegally Exporting Nvidia Chips to China
The U.S. arrested two U.S. citizens and two Chinese nationals last week after accusing them of using a purported Florida real estate firm, an Alabama distributor and nearly $4 million in wire transfers to buy and illegally export “cutting edge” chips to China.
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The chips, which fell under Export Control Classification No. 4A090.a, were subject to license requirements set by an October 2022 Bureau of Industry and Security rule that sought to restrict sensitive chip exports to China (see 2210070049), according to an indictment unsealed this month. DOJ said the four people knew that export licenses were required, but "none of the conspirators ever sought or obtained a license for any of these exports." Instead, they "lied about the intended destination of the GPUs [graphics processing units] to evade U.S. export controls."
John Eisenberg, DOJ's assistant attorney general for national security, said the suspects falsified paperwork, created fake contracts and misled U.S. authorities to ship the Nvidia chips to China. The agency also said they received over $3.89 million in wire transfers to their Bank of America accounts from an unnamed Chinese company to "fund this unlawful scheme."
“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," Eisenberg said.
Florida resident Hon Ning Ho, Alabama resident Brian Raymond, Chinese national and Florida resident Jing Chen, and Chinese national and California resident Cham Li were arrested last week and indicted on a range of trade-related charges, including conspiracy to violate the Export Control Reform Act, violating ECRA, smuggling and conspiracy to commit money laundering. They face a maximum of 20 years in prison for each ECRA violation, 10 years for each smuggling count, and 20 years for each money laundering count.
From September 2023 to November 2025, Ho, Raymond, Li and Chen allegedly conspired to violate U.S. export controls by shipping the GPUs to China through Malaysia and Thailand, DOJ said. They allegedly used the Florida-based company Janford Realtor, a business owned and controlled by Ho and Li, to buy and ship the Nvidia chips. Despite the company’s name, Janford Realtor “was never involved in any real estate transactions” and instead “served as an intermediary” for multiple illegal exports to China, DOJ said.
After the chips were bought by Janford Realtor, Raymond, the owner of an Alabama-based electronics company, used his firm to supply the GPUs to the other co-conspirators, who exported the chips, DOJ said.
The indictment said Ho and the other suspects created fake contracts with "fictitious and false" end uses for the Nvidia chips in Malaysia and Thailand to purposefully evade U.S. controls, and they filed incorrect Electronic Export Information, including false information about the ultimate consignee, country of ultimate destination, and license requirement. They also discussed “ways to evade” the restrictions by shipping the chips through third countries and hiding the source of the payments from chip suppliers.
DOJ said it identified four separate exports of Nvidia GPUs to China. The first and second shipments included 400 A100s exported from October 2024 to January 2025, while the third and fourth shipments "were disrupted by law enforcement and therefore not completed," DOJ said. The attempted exports "related to ten Hewlett Packard Enterprises supercomputers containing NVIDIA H100 GPUs and 50 separate NVIDIA H200 GPUs."
The U.S. will seek forfeiture of 50 H200 chips, DOJ said, which are in DHS custody.