US Trillions Treasure Robbed, Here's the Culprit

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia - The largest case of Nvidia chip smuggling has been uncovered in the United States (US). This crime also involves Supermicro server manufacturer.

The Department of Justice announced charges against three suspects. One is a Chinese national from Hong Kong named Stanley Yi Zheng and two are from the US named Matthew Kelly and Tommy Shad.

The trio conspired to smuggle export-controlled chips to China in May 2023. This was done using an intermediary company from Thailand, quoted PC Mag, Friday (27/3/2026).

PC Mag reported that the three attempted to smuggle export-controlled chips to China. The shipment was carried out using a Thai intermediary company.

In the Department of Justice (DOJ) report, there were no names of Nvidia or Supermicro. It was only in the 41-page criminal complaint that the smuggling of hundreds of Nvidia A100 and H100 chips was mentioned, along with screenshots of messages also referring to the company’s GPUs.

The DOJ criminal complaint states that the three suspects attempted to purchase Nvidia GPUs from a computer hardware and services company in San Jose.

Additionally, it was reported that Zheng placed an order for 232 units of the SYS-821GE-TNHR server model worth nearly $62 million. This product is described as a Supermicro product that supports Nvidia H100 and H200 GPUs.

Nvidia and Supermicro did not immediately respond to requests for comment. However, the court complaint states that federal officials had previously contacted both companies.

Employees from Nvidia and Supermicro reportedly became aware that something was amiss with the order requests, which were cancelled in early 2024. The suspects made a second order in April 2024, which also failed.