Brooklyn tech worker charged in AI chip smuggling scheme

NATIONWIDE — A BROOKLYN-BASED TECHNOLOGY entrepreneur was swept up in a federal case alleging a multimillion-dollar scheme to illegally export advanced Nvidia AI chips to China and Hong Kong, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Monday. Fanyue “Tom” Gong, 43, a PRC citizen, was arrested on Dec. 3 in New York and charged with conspiring to smuggle restricted H100 and H200 GPUs, chips the DOJ calls “integral to modern military applications.” H200 GPUs are the company’s second-most powerful chips.

Prosecutors say Gong used straw purchasers and U.S. warehouses to reroute the hardware, directing workers to strip Nvidia labels, repackage the GPUs under a fake brand, “SANDKYAN,” and falsify export documents to mask shipments bound for China. The Justice Department alleges Gong coordinated with a Hong Kong logistics firm and a China-based AI company to evade export controls. He faces up to 10 years in federal prison.

His arrest is part of “Operation Gatekeeper,” which seized more than $50 million in GPUs. Also arrested were Alan Hao Hsu aka Haochun Hsu, 43, Missouri City, and his company, Hao Global LLC, and Benlin Yuan, 58, a Canadian citizen who resides in Mississauga, Ontario.

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump announced the U.S. will allow Nvidia’s H200 processors to be exported to China, with the U.S. collecting a 25% fee, according to Reuters.

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