New charges for 3 men allegedly linked to servers that likely contained Nvidia chips

Prosecutors on March 6 tabled new charges against the three men allegedly linked to computer servers exported to Malaysia that might contain Nvidia chips.

Singaporeans Aaron Woon Guo Jie, 40, and Alan Wei Zhaolun, 48, were each handed a second fraud charge, after the Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) uncovered further evidence.

The men are accused of committing fraud against Supermicro, a US-headquartered supplier of servers, by making a false representation that the items would not be transferred to a person other than the authorised ultimate consignee of end users.

Their first charge for similarly defrauding another supplier of servers was amended, with the supplier now identified as computer software firm Dell.

The pair worked at Aperia Cloud Services, a Singapore-based technology company. Wei was the firm’s chief executive and Woon its chief operating officer.

The offences were allegedly committed in 2024.

Deputy Chief Prosecutor Ng Yiwen said there may be other persons of interest linked to the case, adding that CAD investigators are recording statements from the individuals.

In total, investigators have seized 42 devices, comprising phones and computers. The items are being examined by forensic experts, said the prosecutors.

Investigators from CAD have also requested bank statements from various financial institutions, to trace the movement of funds linked to the two men.

Further statements from existing witnesses will also be recorded, as CAD seeks assistance from law enforcement agencies in certain foreign jurisdictions to uncover more evidence, said Mr Ng.

The prosecutor sought a further remand of eight days for Wei and Woon, who attended the hearing via video link.

Wei’s defence lawyer Shashi Nathan and Woon’s counsel Cheryl Chong did not object to this application, and District Judge Brenda Tan granted it.

Wei’s and Woon’s cases were adjourned to March 13. The court heard that Wei’s wife was in court during the hearing.

The third man linked to the case – Chinese national Li Ming – was also handed a second charge, under the Computer Misuse Act.

Li, who also appeared via video link, is accused of obtaining access to an OCBC bank account to make and receive transfers for a company he controlled, named Luxuriate Your Life.

The 51-year-old is already facing a fraud charge for an offence said to have been committed in 2023 on Supermicro.

He allegedly made a false representation that Luxuriate Your Life would be the end user of items which were not identified.

Li’s lawyer, Mr Wendell Wong from Drew and Napier, objected to the prosecution’s application for a further remand of eight days.

Mr Wong argued that the prosecution is making the application for CAD’s convenience.

He said the police department’s request for time to get bank statements and work with other overseas law enforcement agencies does not involve his client, and does not require him to be remanded.

The lawyer added that there is no assertion that his client is a flight risk.

Deputy Chief Prosecutor Ng said CAD had assessed that there is a risk of collusion and contamination of evidence if Li is released at this stage of investigations.

He said investigators have learnt that there is a close association between Li, his spouse and a nominee shareholder of a company involved in the case.

Judge Tan granted the prosecution’s application.

She said it is fair that CAD requires time to complete its investigations, and that there was nothing to suggest that it was asking for further remand for its convenience.

The three men were first charged on Feb 27 with one count each of fraud.

The probe in Singapore came after an anonymous tip-off about computer servers that might contain Nvidia chips being exported to Malaysia, and possibly to an unknown final destination.

Preliminary investigations showed that servers from US firms Dell and Supermicro, possibly embedded with Nvidia artificial intelligence (AI) chips, were sent to Singapore-based companies before they were exported to Malaysia.

Home Affairs and Law Minister K. Shanmugam said on March 3 the servers likely contained items subject to export controls by the US.

The US government had in 2022 imposed a number of export controls to restrict the sale of high-performance AI chips to China.

Questions were raised in the US earlier in 2025 when a Chinese start-up launched DeepSeek, an AI platform allegedly using chips from Nvidia, a leading AI chip designer in the US.

The launch of DeepSeek in January wiped around US$1 trillion (S$1.33 trillion) off the value of US tech stocks.

The authorities in the US are looking into the potential circumvention of its export controls for advanced Nvidia chips.

The chip designer released a statement to say there was no reason to believe that DeepSeek had obtained any export-controlled products from Singapore.

Mr Shanmugam said the authorities in Singapore are investigating if Malaysia was a final destination for the servers or if the servers went somewhere else.

He added that if there were false representations within Singapore about the servers’ final destination, then an offence under the country’s laws had been committed.

Meanwhile, Singapore has asked the Malaysian and US authorities to share relevant information to assist in investigations.

Mr Shanmugam said that if the servers did contain US export-controlled items, Singapore would support US investigations, adding that the Republic has good laws to deal with the domestic situation.

The minister said companies operating in Singapore are expected to take into account other countries’ unilateral export controls that apply to their international business activities and conduct their businesses transparently.

On Feb 18, Second Minister for Trade and Industry Tan See Leng told Parliament that products sold by Nvidia to Singapore that were physically delivered here represent less than 1 per cent of the chipmaker’s overall revenue.

He said the remainder of Nvidia’s revenue billed to business entities in Singapore did not involve physical shipments into the country.

Dr Tan added that Nvidia’s products are mainly deployed here for major enterprises and the Government.

Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan said during the same Parliament session that Singapore was not legally obliged to enforce the unilateral export measures of countries around the world.

“But we will enforce the multilateral agreed-upon export control regimes,” he added.

Mr Shanmugam said countries in the trade and supply chain have to work together to ensure that everything is done properly, by enforcing their domestic laws within their jurisdictions.

“As you can see, the issue is not with the law. We have the laws.

“It’s with enforcement, and we are enforcing. But where you have an international chain of events, it will not be possible for any one country to deal with this by itself.”

Nadine Chua is a crime and court journalist at The Straits Times.

Source: The Straits Times © SPH Media Limited. Permission required for reproduction.

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