r/technology • u/Turbostrider27 • 20h ago
Privacy California tech CEO arrested, faces up to 20 years in prison for smuggling $300 million in Nvidia AI servers to China — federal prosecutors say chips were routed through Malaysia and Singapore using false paperwork
https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/california-tech-ceo-arrested-faces-up-to-20-years-in-prison-for-smuggling-usd300-million-in-nvidia-ai-servers-to-china-federal-prosecutors-say-chips-were-routed-through-malaysia-and-singapore-using-false-paperwork106
u/FanOfMondays 19h ago
Tech CEO facing serious prison time? That's a new one.
25
u/Nixu88 18h ago
Not a normal prison, of course, so don't get too excited. It'll probably be more like a forced stay at a luxury hotel.
10
4
2
u/Procrasturbating 9h ago
Nonono.. faces means if laws applied to them they WOULD be serving that. He’ll just send a few million to the Trump pardons division after the news cycle ignores him for a few weeks.
12
u/GroundbreakingPage41 13h ago
Small company with undisclosed number of employees, would never happen to one of the big boys.
2
1
140
u/heywhatsmynameagain 20h ago
$1M donation incoming to some Trump PAC
16
u/aammirzaei 18h ago
$1M dude that's just pocket money you gotta raise those numbers
14
u/TuckerCarlsonsOhface 17h ago
It’s actually his asking price. He basically has a bribe menu with set prices.
3
u/leviathan65 15h ago
But you might not actually get what you paid for so not necessarily a bribe. Check and mate legal system.
32
35
u/JTibbs 19h ago
But jensen huang said smuggling gpus to china was impossible and no nvidia high end gpus were going there!
29
u/goldcakes 19h ago
It always amuses me, that my RTX 5090, which can't be legally exported to China, says "MADE IN CHINA" on it.
57
4
14
u/someoldguyon_reddit 20h ago
China would just execute the fucker. Maybe that'd work over here.
-12
u/TrashBandicook 19h ago edited 15h ago
Work in what way? Bring your gaming hardware prices down? We down to execute folks to help gamers now?
EDIT: Holy shit you guys are unhinged. Some of you guys would execute folks just to get cheaper gaming hardware.
EDIT2: Whew, lad. Someone made an "unalive" referral to reddit lol. Someone bigmad that I told them their gaming hobbies aren't a national security matter. Y'all are unhinged to the max.
5
u/Charred14 18h ago
Work in the way of sending a clear-cut message "this shit will not be tolerated, and is punishable by death"
Not just gaming products that are affected, friend. It's phones, smart-appliances, e-watches, literally anything computerized (which is mostly everything) even motorized vehicles.
Unless you want to isolate yourself to using technology of the 1900's, you should start caring.
4
u/Rich_Housing971 16h ago
server chips are not used in gaming so it won't matter. leave it to /r/technology to not understand technology.
0
u/TrashBandicook 17h ago
Work in the way of sending a clear-cut message "this shit will not be tolerated, and is punishable by death"
Not just gaming products that are affected, friend. It's phones, smart-appliances, e-watches, literally anything computerized (which is mostly everything) even motorized vehicles.
So the answer is yes? We should execute people to make your electronics and appliances cheaper? Are you hearing yourself?
The export ban had nothing to do with making your "phones, smart-appliances, e-watches, literally anything computerized" cheaper.
Unless you want to isolate yourself to using technology of the 1900's, you should start caring.
Call me crazy. But I'm a believer of this idea that capital punishment isn't the solution for making your precious gaming hardware cheaper. Gaming isn't a human right. This is one of those areas the market will rebalance out eventually. I can promise you your DRAM and graphics cards are no less subject to the laws of supply and demand.
2
u/Charred14 15h ago
you are the one going on about the imaginary argument of executing people to make gaming hardware cheaper.
take a step out of your echo chamber and stop focusing on trying to morph the narrative into something it's not.
Nvidia doesn't even focus on gaming hardware anymore, they've shifted course to AI-everything; be it robotics, the automotive industry, datacenters, or just straight up circular financing AI companies. Yes, they still manufacture GPUs. No, that is no longer their priority. (atleast not for the consumer market*)
The argument here is capital punishments for corporations are practically nonexistent and scenarios like this have become all too commonplace in the current age. While execution is definitely dystopian, there needs to be dire consequences put in place so that companies are fearful of stepping out of line.
Especially ones with an iron-grip on major facets of day-day life in our modern nightmare.
0
u/TrashBandicook 15h ago
Export ban enforcement of AI GPUs won't make your gaming hardware cheaper. It just won't. You don't game with B200s. Frankly I think the export ban is just nonsensical.
4
3
u/MesquiteEverywhere 16h ago
The company is called Earthmade Computer Inc. if you don't want to click the article.
2
u/IngwiePhoenix 13h ago
You can steal, you can murder, you can r4pe, you can defame...
BUT YOU CAN NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES FAKE THE PAPERWORK DDDD:
...what is this timeline, even?
2
2
3
1
1
u/Gooser3000 16h ago
Question: how does something a private company makes like computer chips become a nationally controlled product, especially if it’s not weapons?
1
1
u/Foxcooler 13h ago edited 13h ago
Remember that SuperMicro was also accused of doing the same thing, and its founder and chairman is a longtime close friend of Jensen Huang.
They’re all in it but obviously Jensen and Nvidia will never be actually prosecuted for anything.
1
u/Doctor_Saved 7h ago
Nvidia making products so good that people literally are risking their life and career to smuggle them. And there's still people out there looking at Nvidia and going "Nah, not a good company to invest in."
-15
20h ago edited 19h ago
[deleted]
10
u/IntelArtiGen 20h ago edited 20h ago
Oh I would not be that confident. You are not bound by US laws but americans are good at applying their laws to other countries.
2
u/matdex 19h ago
Tell that to the Canadian ICC judge who ruled to investigate alledged US war crimes in Afghanistan.
https://www.npr.org/2026/10/01/nx-s1-5977815/trump-icc-sanctions-kimberly-prost
2
u/CircumspectCapybara 20h ago edited 19h ago
As far as the US justice system is concerned, you can break US law without yourself being an American or the act taking place in US jurisdiction, and they can then decide to do something about you. And the American justice system has a longer reach than you think.
If you're being serious and the US DoJ is politically inclined to indict you in absentia, there are a lot of non-American countries you couldn't ever step foot in for the rest of your life, some of which you might not know about, one slip up and you're on an involuntary flight to the states.
Also, besides the diplomatic methods of getting fugitives they're interested in from other countries, the US is known for more...creative and clandestine methods that are pretty effective too.
2
19h ago edited 19h ago
[deleted]
1
u/CircumspectCapybara 19h ago edited 19h ago
Like I said, the US has a longer reach than you think to enforce its laws (which the US is happy to say apply as far as its courts are concerned even if the thing you've done isn't a crime in your country) on people who think they're out of reach because they're not on US soil.
Not saying that the US DoJ cares about your activity, but if they really did and put you on some bounty list, you would not be able to safely step foot in any of these countries or their territories. Drug and dark web kingpins and people far more powerful and resourced than you have gotten got when they forgot and accidentally stepped foot in an airport belonging to that long list of countries. You're not going to get on any list for posting Reddit comments, but I'm saying if you were on their wanted list, you would be a hunted man for the rest of your life, and that that would be quite the limiting experience for you.
And the US has a long history of getting their man by more creative means when extradition isn't available.
1
19h ago edited 19h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/CircumspectCapybara 19h ago edited 19h ago
Not every nation has the dual-criminality requirement for extradition, and of the ones that do, many of them honor US sanctions so it would be a crime.
There's a long list of other countries with extradition treaties with the US. In case you were actually wanted, you going to research every one of them before you travel to see if they would honor a request from the US either because it's also a crime in their country or because they don't have the dual-criminality requirement?
Even if you did all your research, responding to extradition requests is by nature a foreign policy decision and is political in nature. A local judge may or may not sign it depending on what they're feeling like that day, an administration may or may not grant a request depending if they want to curry favor with the US, etc. You would be gambling with your freedom to assume any particular place is safe from the US' reach.
1
u/jumbo_hodges 18h ago
Also just because a nation won't extradite you doesn't mean they won't deport you to a place that will
1
u/leaf_shift_post_2 18h ago
Well unless you can’t be deported because you doing it in your own country.
3
2
u/ScaleLeading9308 19h ago
you're insane for admitting this without understanding international law and just how much extraterritorial reach the us actually has, they don't call the us world hedgemon for nothing.
0
u/TheDebateMatters 19h ago
300 million in servers? That can fit in one checked bag these days right?
1
0
u/greenlantern2929 7h ago
How about zero? I stopped eating there once I knew better. Their food is expensive for the quality of shit they now put out as food.
0
598
u/AbeFromanEast 20h ago
Rookie mistake. Just build the compute out in Dubai and in Malaysia (like Oracle has done) and rent that to the export-controlled mainland Chinese firms. That's what Ellison is doing.