The individuals were charged with fraud and money laundering for breaking U.S. export controls, even though they do not legally apply in Singapore.
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The U.S. started the investigation when it looked into DeepSeek after it released its groundbreaking frontier model in late 2024. American officials were checking if the Chinese AI company used third-party firms based in Singapore to acquire Nvidia GPUs that were banned from export to China at that time. The probe showed that even though Singapore accounted for about 28% of Nvidia’s revenue, only 1% of those are actually delivered to the country. The investigation eventually led to the arrest of Woon, Wei, and Li in the first quarter of 2025. The Singapore government said that although they were not legally obliged to enforce the export controls of other nations, it said that it expects businesses operating within its borders to honor these laws.
"The police hold a zero-tolerance stance towards such offenses and will act resolutely against those, whether businesses or individuals, who violate our laws, and safeguard Singapore's integrity as a trusted global financial and business hub underpinned by the rule of law," the Singapore police said in a statement.
Since Singapore law does not cover the U.S.’s export controls, prosecutors charged them with fraud and money laundering instead, saying that the four individuals had roles in misrepresenting the end users of the servers they bought from Dell , Supermicro, and Asus. Wei is also facing a different money laundering charge with regard to the USD 4.5 million (SGD 5.8 million) stored in his personal bank accounts, which were allegedly proceeds of criminal conduct. The suspects could face imprisonment of up to 20 years each and multiple fines of up to USD 385k (SGD 500k) if they are found guilty.
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Taiwan authorities arrest three on suspicion of smuggling Nvidia chips to China
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Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/singapore-cops-seize-usd42-million-mansion-freeze-usd772k-bank-account-of-suspected-nvidia-ai-gpu-smugglers-individuals-alleged-to-have-illegally-exported-data-center-servers-to-china-charged-with-fraud-money-laundering#main
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