Singapore police and customs authorities have charged three men for allegedly circumventing U.S. trade export restrictions by illegally re-exporting Nvidia GPUs to Chinese artificial intelligence company DeepSeek, according to a report by Channel News Asia on the 26th.

The report stated that Singaporean authorities also raided 22 locations on the same day, arresting nine individuals and seizing relevant documents and electronic records.

In a statement, the police revealed that three of the nine arrested have been charged with fraud. Two Singaporean nationals—41-year-old Aaron Woon Guo Jie and 49-year-old Alan Wei Zhaolun—were accused of conspiring to defraud a server supplier by making false statements in 2024, claiming that the items would not be transferred to anyone other than the "authorized end-user." Additionally, 51-year-old Chinese national Li Ming was charged with fraud for allegedly falsely stating in 2023 that the end-user of the items would be a company named Luxuriate Your Life.

If convicted, the charge of fraudulent misrepresentation carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, a fine, or both.

This crackdown comes amid reports that intermediaries in Singapore have been bypassing U.S. export controls to facilitate the illegal shipment of Nvidia chips to China. In late January, the U.S. also announced an investigation into whether DeepSeek had obtained Nvidia AI GPUs, banned for export to China, through Singaporean intermediaries.

Notably, in mid-February, Singapore's Minister for Trade and Industry, Tan See Leng, stated that only about 1% of Nvidia's sales in Singapore actually entered the country. He explained, "Physical deliveries of Nvidia products sold to Singapore account for less than 1% of Nvidia's total revenue. It is common practice for global entities to centralize billing for goods and services at their hubs, which is separate from where the products are ultimately shipped—a practice beyond our scrutiny."

Richard Jarc, an investor and analyst at UncoverAlpha, highlighted that Nvidia's fiscal Q3 2025 earnings report (for the natural year Q3 2024) showed revenue from Singapore surged 185% year-on-year to $7.7 billion, accounting for 18.15% of Nvidia's total revenue—more than half of its U.S. revenue. This suggests that while Singapore-based companies purchased large quantities of Nvidia AI GPUs with billing addresses in Singapore, the chips were ultimately shipped to other countries.

Tan See Leng noted that such business strategies are not new, as many multinational companies operating across borders employ similar practices. He added, "If you operate in different countries, it is sometimes more cost-effective to use a headquarters address for billing and ship items directly to where they are needed."

Nvidia has previously clarified that "revenue by geographic region is based on the billing location of customers. The end customer and delivery address may differ from the billing address. For example, most goods related to Singapore revenue are shipped outside Singapore, with only a negligible amount delivered to Singapore."

Tan See Leng emphasized that the Singaporean government is working closely with U.S. authorities to investigate the discrepancies and will not tolerate any businesses using Singaporean addresses to circumvent export controls set by other countries.