Until recently, it was believed that third countries played a key role in the smuggling of American-made AI accelerators banned from delivery to China, but materials from one criminal case demonstrate the viability of a scheme involving the illegal supply of this type of product directly from the United States.
Edition The Wire China reminded that the justice authorities in the United States succeeded nip The activities of a group that attempted to supply Nvidia H100 and H200 accelerators and related components to China between October 2024 and mid-2025, purchasing them from Lenovo's US subsidiary in North Carolina. However, the investigation failed to prove Lenovo's involvement; the company actively cooperated with US authorities and emphasized that its end-use verification procedures for supplied products provide the necessary protection against the misuse of sanctioned products.
Hao Global, a Texas-based company founded by an American citizen of Chinese descent named Hsu, acted as a trusted buyer of Nvidia products, which US authorities prohibit from being exported to China. Incidentally, while the investigation was ongoing, the export restrictions on H200 chips to China were lifted, but in fact, official shipments have not yet been made for a variety of reasons.
Hao Global initially agreed to purchase a batch of more than 7000 Nvidia H100 and H200 accelerators for approximately $160 million. In reality, the first deal was the purchase of 60 baseboards with H100 accelerators for $10,8 million. Lenovo was notified that these Nvidia products were being purchased for the American company's needs, but in fact, they were shipped to Shenzhen, China, via a warehouse in New York, Singapore, and then Hong Kong.
Hao Global attempted to ship a second batch of accelerators to a logistics company in Hong Kong. The shipment was paid for in January of last year, with Hao Global making a deposit into Lenovo's account for the purchase of 800 H100 and 1600 H200 accelerators. The batch was split into several parts, the first of which was scheduled for Thailand. It was seized by agents of the US Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) at a warehouse in Atlanta, Georgia. The second batch was scheduled to leave the country via a warehouse in the New York area. There, a group of workers relabeled the Nvidia accelerators, passing them off as "Sandkyan adapters" to avoid the attention of regulatory authorities during transit. A total of five batches of accelerators arrived at this warehouse for relabeling. From this warehouse, the accelerators were sent to Canada for onward transportation to China via intermediary countries.
Following a tip from an informant, the bulk of the accelerator stock in an American warehouse was seized by BIS agents, one of whom had been planted within the warehouse. The confiscation of the goods did not arouse suspicion among Hao Global's management, who simply assumed it was stolen. In May, individuals associated with the scheme's organizers contacted an undercover BIS agent, who then offered a $1 million ransom for the return of the shipment. The "smugglers" who arrived at the warehouse were caught red-handed, having previously transferred $1 million to an account specified by the agent, which belonged to US law enforcement agencies. What's most surprising to experts about this entire story is that similar schemes were carried out on US soil, and all precautions proved futile. Even strengthening them does not guarantee complete elimination of the possibility of smuggling.
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Source: 3dnews.ru
