TAMPA, Fla. – Two men from Tampa are facing Federal charges after they were busted sending sophisticated computer parts to China.
The suspects had a phony address at the office building at the intersection of Kennedy and Westshore Boulevard in Tampa, which they claimed was a real estate business.             Â
But, they weren’t buying and selling houses.    Â
Rather, it was computer parts.
“This was a complete front,” said US Attorney Greg Kehoe. “They weren’t doing any real estate business there.”
Instead, prosecutors say Hon Ning Ho, 34, and Jing Chen, 45, both of Tampa, were buying and selling advanced computer parts made by Nvidia.
 Prosecutors say Ho and Chen were acquiring chips and supercomputers from a man named Brian Raymond in Alabama, and then sending them to other front groups in Malaysia and Thailand.
Dig deeper:
Federal laws require reporting of all exports that could be related to national security if they’re headed to rival nations, like China.
 Agents believe that’s where the chips were headed.
 “What in heaven’s name, is a realty company from Tampa doing, sending GPUs to Malaysia and Thailand,” said Kehoe. “It was a round peg in a square hole.”
 China is seeking desperately to build its AI technology, which experts say could be key to its battle for economic and military supremacy with the United States.
 “It has a great energy grid to build data centers to run AI inference operations at scale. The one thing China is missing is computational power. And the one place it gets it is from chip design companies in the United States,” said Ryan Fedasiuk, an expert on China with the American Enterprise Institute.
 Documents show that Hon Ning Ho tried to rename his alleged shell company in May, from Janford Realtor to “Janford AI Solutions Realty.
What they’re saying:
Prosecutors say they made nearly $4 million with the scheme, and that while some of the parts were recovered, some did make it to the People’s Republic of China.
“That is an ongoing effort, I hate to say it, for decades,” said Kehoe. “Do I think this is the only time something similar to this has transpired? No. I would be naive if I said that this was just an isolated incident.”
What’s next:
The two suspects from Tampa, Hon Ning Ho and Jing Chen are being held in the Pinellas County Jail on Federal charges.
They are facing fifty years for violating export laws, smuggling and money laundering.
The Source: Information in this article was gathered from interviews conducted with US Attorney Greg Kehoe by FOX 13’s Evan Axelbank.