Singapore charges three with fraud in cases reportedly linked to smuggling of Nvidia chips to China
Singapore authorities have charged three men with fraud, in a case reportedly tied to the possible smuggling of chips into China.
Police and customs officials launched a raid across more than 20 locations on Wednesday, arresting nine people, including the three individuals charged with fraud. Two are Singapore citizens, and one is a Chinese national.
According to a statement by the Singapore police, one individual is being charged with 'committing fraud on a supplier of servers by fraudulently making false representation,' with the other two charged with 'criminal conspiracy to commit fraud.'
Local media outlet CNA reported that the Chinese national arrested claimed that the end-user of the items in question was a company called 'Luxuriate Your Life,' allegedly a "false representation."
Officials in Washington are reportedly scrutinizing Singapore's role as a trans-shipment hub for advanced semiconductors, following the recent success of Chinese startup DeepSeek, and its ability to create AI models as powerful as those made by U.S. developers.
CNA, without disclosing how it got the information, reported that the case is linked to probes into whether DeepSeek managed to get access to Nvidia chips, in spite of Washington's export controls.
Nvidia's advanced AI chips cannot be legally sold to Chinese end-users without a license, according to U.S. law.
U.S. officials are reportedly probing if DeepSeek circumvented export controls by buying advanced Nvidia chips through third parties in Singapore.
In interviews and research papers, DeepSeek and its parent company, hedge fund HighFlyer, say they had Nvidia's A100 and H800 processors, acquired before access to each chip was closed off by Washington.
Nvidia's Singapore revenue is growing faster than all other locations, increasing by 10 times in two years from $2.3 billion in its 2023 fiscal year to $23.7 billion in its most recent fiscal year, which ended this January.
That rapid rise has sparked questions as to how many of Nvidia's Singapore chips are, in fact, bound for Singapore-based customers. The company itself has noted that its stated Singapore revenue is based upon where customers book invoices, and that Singapore-bound products are almost always shipped elsewhere.
Nvidia claims that only 2% of its 2025 annual revenue was generated from shipments to Singapore-based customers.
Singaporean officials say that they don't condone businesses using the city to bypass export controls imposed by other nations. In comments to Singapore's parliament on Feb. 18, second minister for trade and industry Tan See Leng noted that much of Nvidia's 'Singapore' revenue doesn't even involve physical shipments of chips to the country.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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