Singaporean authorities said yesterday that they have seized a luxury bungalow and charged four people with money laundering as part of an investigation linked to the alleged movement of Nvidia chips subject to U.S. export controls.
In a statement, the Singapore Police Force (SPF) said that it had issued a “prohibition of disposal order” against a residence valued at around S$55 million ($42.4 million) and seized around S$1 million of funds in connection with fraud investigations. The order means the property cannot be sold or transferred as long as it is in force.
The investigation centers on two Singaporeans, Aaron Woon and Alan Wei, who were charged in February 2025 with criminal conspiracy to commit fraud, and a Chinese national named Li Ming, who was charged at the same time with committing fraud by false representation. In April of this year, a fourth defendant, Jenny Lim, was charged in connection with the case.
At the time of the alleged offences, Woon, Wei, and Lim were key officers of three companies, Aperia International, A-Speed Infotech, and Aperia Cloud Services – collectively known as the Aperia Group – that are alleged to have concealed the actual end-user of servers. Separately, Li was found through investigations to be the controller of another company, Luxuriate Your Life, that was allegedly involved in the scheme.
Authorities say that the servers in question, which may have contained advanced Nvidia AI chips, were shipped from Singapore to Malaysia. Although it is unclear whether this was their ultimate destination, some media reports suggested that they may have been destined for China.
Yesterday, police also announced additional charges of fraud and money laundering against the defendants. Lim and Woon were each handed seven new charges, while Wei is set to receive seven new charges on July 6, the SPF said. The fraud charges allege that the three “engaged in a conspiracy to commit fraud in respect of the purchase of servers” from the U.S. companies Dell, Super Micro Computer, and Asus. The charges assert that between November 2023 and February 2025, the trio “falsely represented, in communications to these suppliers, that one of the Aperia Group companies would be the end-user of the servers.”
The four companies will also face a total of eight charges of fraud by false representation which are due to be announced on July 6, which the SPF said was “the first instance of corporate entities being prosecuted in relation to these investigations.”
Lim and Woon were also charged with money laundering, after “each acquiring approximately SG$1.2 million in their personal bank accounts,” which pointed to benefits from criminal conduct, police said. Wei faces three counts of money laundering relating to the aforementioned seized mansion, and an additional S$5.8 that was deposited in his personal account, and which police allege was partly made up of benefits from criminal conduct.
In addition to this, Li was also slapped with additional charges of fraud related to a similar misrepresentation of the end-user of servers that Luxuriate Your Life intended to purchase from the U.S. firm Super Micro.
The Singaporean investigation is an attempt to plug the holes in the regime of export controls that U.S. President Joe Biden placed on the most sophisticated AI chips, as well as the tools used to produce them. The goal of these restrictions was to hamstring China’s efforts to develop its own chip-making industry and prevent it from developing AI capabilities that could give the country a military edge.
In February of last year, the same month that saw the initial arrests in this chip-smuggling case, it was reported that the U.S. Commerce Department was initiating investigations into whether the Chinese AI company DeepSeek had gained access to restricted Nvidia chips, and whether these chips had been sourced from third parties in countries including Malaysia and Singapore.
Singapore said that it is unaware of any smuggling taking place in the country, but that it would come down hard on any individuals or entities found to be breaching the law – a stance that the SPF reiterated in yesterday’s statement.
“The police hold a zero-tolerance stance towards such offenses and will act resolutely against those, whether businesses or individuals, who violate our laws, and safeguard Singapore’s integrity as a trusted global financial and business hub underpinned by the rule of law,” the statement read.
Malaysia has also promised to close any loopholes against the movement of advanced semiconductors through its jurisdiction. Last week, Malaysian authorities said they had foiled an attempt to smuggle advanced AI chips through the country’s main airport, seizing 72 servers worth nearly $13 million.
