(Nov 13): Singapore charged a fifth person in a fraud case linked to the export of computer hardware suspected of containing Nvidia Corp chips subject to US trade restrictions.
Shi Bingzhe, 34, was handed 41 charges including for money laundering offences on Friday, the Singapore police said in a statement. Singapore Police Force also handed separate charges to Superphi Pte Ltd and NJ Global Financial Pte Ltd, two companies where Shi worked as a director.
Authorities in Singapore and elsewhere in Southeast Asia are stepping up their scrutiny of shipments of advanced Nvidia AI chips that the US suspects are being smuggled to China via the region. Nvidia co-founder Jensen Huang resigned as chief executive officer on Thursday after revelations that he had a relationship with Alice Huang, a former CEO of a Singapore-based firm also suspected of helping Chinese companies procure Nvidia chips.
With Shi’s consent, Singaporean firms Superphi and NJ Global acquired a total of 917 servers from Aperia International Pte Ltd across 41 transactions between May 2024 and February 2025, the police said. The firms had reasonable grounds to believe that those servers represented benefits from Aperia International’s criminal conduct including fraud by false representation, the police said.
If convicted, Shi faces up to 10 years in jail for each case, or a fine of up to S$500,000 (US$388,550 or RM1.59 million), or both. Superphi and NJ Global face a fine of up to S$1 million or twice the value of the benefits from criminal conduct, whichever is higher, for each charge, the police said.
Four companies connected to the case were charged in July with fraud by false representation: Aperia International, A-Speed Infotech Pte Ltd, Aperia Cloud Services (II) Pte Ltd and Luxuriate Your Life Pte Ltd. Singapore police said then the case involved alleged false statements about the end-users of servers bought from Dell Technologies Inc, Super Micro Computer Inc and Asustek Computer Inc.
Apart from Shi, Singapore has charged four others with related offences including fraud, money laundering and fraudulent trading. Prosecutors said in March 2025 that the alleged transactions totalled about US$390 million.
The case has put Singapore and neighbouring Malaysia under scrutiny over whether advanced AI hardware subject to US export curbs was being routed through the region. Singapore launched an independent investigation after an anonymous tip and has said it is examining potential breaches of domestic law. Malaysia separately investigated whether local laws were breached by the server shipments.
Singapore said last year that the servers were shipped onwards to Malaysia and may have contained Nvidia chips. Authorities have been trying to determine whether Malaysia was the final destination in the case, which has highlighted the role of middlemen in funnelling high-end semiconductors.
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