U.S. Charges Man With Smuggling More Than $300 Million in Computer Servers to China
Key Facts
The U.S. Justice Department announced on October 1, 2026, the arrest of 38-year-old Greg Low and charged him in an alleged scheme to smuggle export-controlled high-performance computer servers to China. The department valued the servers at more than $300 million and said the indictment contains three federal charges. A grand jury returned the indictment on September 29, 2026, according to the department. Authorities say the case involves servers containing U.S.-made graphics processing units, without specifying their models. The charges place re-export routes and regional intermediaries at the center of Washington’s efforts to enforce restrictions on advanced technology goods.
According to the department, Low owns Earthmade Computer Inc, a technology company based in the California city of Industry, and he and his associates used it to buy controlled goods and send them to China during 2023 and 2024. The indictment says the shipments passed through countries including Malaysia and Singapore, where those goods do not require the same license, before being re-exported to China. The department also alleges that documents submitted to U.S. manufacturers listed permitted destinations and end users. It says the servers’ true end users were in China. The department describes a supply chain that used intermediary companies and destinations to conceal the alleged final destination.
In financial details cited by the department, Earthmade received more than $176 million from two Malaysia-based shipping companies between January and October 2024. The department gives an example from January 2024, when Low ordered 27 servers from a U.S. manufacturer for about $7,614,000. It says the servers were shipped to Kuala Lumpur. Afterward, a co-conspirator told a Malaysian official they had been transferred to a buyer in China, according to the department’s account. The alleged incident distinguishes the value of a specific purchase order from the total payments the department said the company received over the 10 months.
The charges, according to the Justice Department, include conspiracy to violate the Export Control Reform Act and the Export Administration Regulations, smuggling goods out of the country, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Assistant U.S. Attorney General Bill Essayli said authorities "will aggressively pursue those who jeopardize our national security for profit." If Low is convicted on all charges, he could face a maximum of 20 years on the conspiracy charge, 20 years on the money-laundering charge and 10 years on the smuggling charge. These statutory maximums are conditional on conviction and do not mean a sentence has been issued. The department emphasizes that defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
The background to the U.S. restrictions cited in the case dates to October 7, 2022, when the Commerce Department announced controls aimed at limiting China’s ability to obtain certain advanced chips used in military applications. The restrictions also covered aspects of supercomputer development and maintenance and advanced semiconductor manufacturing. On January 13, 2026, the department said export applications for Nvidia H200, AMD MI325X and similar chips to China would be reviewed case by case, with security requirements. The conditions included an independent product inspection in the United States and compliance procedures for the Chinese buyer. These decisions show that export policy includes license and compliance reviews alongside restrictions on access to specific technologies.
The Justice Department said its Office of Export Enforcement within the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are investigating the case. The department’s statement did not confirm specific models of graphics processing units inside the servers. In the market, Nvidia shares closed at $217.2601 on October 28, 2026, according to EL7 data. That price is the stock’s close on that date, while the charges focus on export-controlled computer servers. The case remains at the charging stage, pending the outcome of judicial proceedings and ongoing investigations.