Federal prosecutors charged three Chinese nationals and an American with illegally smuggling advanced NVIDIA computer chips to China, according to court documents filed following an arrest in California on Wednesday.
Authorities arrested Cham Li, also known as “Tony Li,” in connection with a Florida indictment accusing him and three others of exporting restricted graphics processing units without required licenses, the court documents stated. The chips are used in AI and supercomputing applications that U.S. officials restrict due to national security concerns. (RELATED: Another Chinese National Busted Allegedly Smuggling Bio-Materials To University Of Michigan Lab)
The defendants allegedly used Janford Realtor LLC, a Tampa shell company, to disguise the shipments between September 2023 and July 2025. Prosecutors say the group sent approximately 400 NVIDIA A100 GPUs and 50 H200 GPUs through Malaysia and Thailand to hide the chips’ final destination in China.
So here’s the scoop: Prosecutors have charged four individuals — two Americans and two Chinese nationals with secretly smuggling hundreds of Nvidia chips and ten HP supercomputers from the US to China. pic.twitter.com/cMBrYedfJ1
— Seamus Hughes (@SeamusHughes) November 20, 2025
Hon Ning Ho of Tampa, Brian Curtis Raymond of Huntsville, Alabama, and Jing Chen of Tampa face charges alongside Li. The indictment accuses them of submitting false export documents and creating fake contracts to avoid detection.
China announced plans to become the world leader in AI by 2030. The Commerce Department imposed export restrictions on advanced computing chips in October 2022 to prevent Beijing from using the technology for weapons development and surveillance tools.
Wire transfers from Chinese company bank accounts totaling over $3 million funded the purchases, according to court documents. Homeland Security Investigations seized 50 NVIDIA H200 GPUs in Tampa.
The defendants face up to 20 years in prison on export control violations, 10 years for smuggling and 20 years for money laundering conspiracy. Each export violation carries a potential $1 million fine.
