Federal prosecutors say they've blown open a brazen China-backed plot to smuggle America's most advanced artificial intelligence technology straight into Beijing's hands.
The case exposes yet another attempt by the Chinese Communist Party to siphon off U.S. innovation to power its military ambitions, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Florida announced Friday.
Two U.S. citizens and two Chinese nationals living in the United States were arrested for allegedly funneling cutting-edge Nvidia GPUs — chips so powerful they're restricted for national security reasons — into China.
Prosecutors say the group knew exactly what they were doing and lied repeatedly to evade American export controls.
U.S. Attorney Gregory Kehoe said the arrests underscore his office's commitment to stopping China's technological theft, declaring that the defendants "who wrongfully exported this sensitive technology are facing justice."
The Justice Department says these chips are precisely the tools Beijing wants to fuel its surveillance state and military modernization.
The suspects include Hon Ning Ho, a U.S. citizen born in Hong Kong; Brian Curtis Raymond, a U.S. citizen from Alabama; Cham "Tony" Li, a Chinese national in California; and Jing "Harry" Chen, a Chinese national in Tampa on an F-1 student visa.
All four were taken into custody this week in coordinated arrests in Florida, Alabama, and California.
"China seeks to become the world leader in AI by 2030 and seeks to use AI for its military modernization efforts and in connection with the design and testing of weapons of mass destruction and deployment of advanced AI surveillance tools. The PRC seeks cutting-edge U.S. technology in furtherance of that goal, including NVIDIA GPUs," the Justice Department said in a press release, citing the indictment.
That strategy prompted U.S. restrictions in 2022 to keep high-end Nvidia processors out of Beijing's reach.
Prosecutors say the defendants spent years conspiring to bypass those guardrails, routing shipments through Malaysia and Thailand in an effort to disguise their true destination. They allegedly knew federal licenses were required but refused to apply for any.
Investigators say Ho and Li created a Tampa-based sham company, Janford Realtor LLC, claiming to be in real estate, even though it never conducted a single real estate transaction. Instead, prosecutors say it acted as a smuggling pipeline for China's tech-hungry government.
Raymond allegedly used his Alabama electronics business to quietly supply restricted GPUs to Ho, feeding a steady stream of high-powered chips into the illegal export chain. Officials say his cooperation formed a crucial link between U.S. suppliers and the Chinese buyers.
The conspirators allegedly succeeded in two major shipments, exporting 400 Nvidia A100 GPUs to China between late 2024 and early 2025. These chips are prized not for gaming or research—but for their ability to train powerful military-grade AI systems.
Authorities say they stopped the group's next move in time: an attempted shipment of 10 Hewlett Packard Enterprise supercomputers loaded with Nvidia H100 processors and 50 Nvidia H200 GPUs, all of which are under tight U.S. control because of their immense computing capabilities.
Prosecutors allege the conspirators raked in more than $3.89 million from China to finance their smuggling operation. They also say the group lied on customs documents, falsified destinations, and used shell entities to fool U.S. regulators.
The U.S. government is seeking to seize the 50 H200 GPUs recovered during the operation. Each defendant faces decades in prison for conspiracy, export control violations, smuggling, and money laundering.
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