Corporate Crime and Compliance

Federal prosecutors charged three men in a $2.5 billion scheme alleging they conspired to smuggle U.S.-made AI server technology to China by assembling servers in the United States, shipping them to Taiwan to be repackaged in unmarked boxes by a Southeast Asia–based company that was falsely portrayed as the end user, and using deceptive tactics — including so‑called “dummy servers” and, reportedly, a hair dryer to alter labels — to evade export controls. The defendants are Yih‑Shyan Liaw, 71, a U.S. citizen, Ting‑Wei Sun, 44, of Taiwan (both arrested), and Ruei‑Tsang Chang, 53, of Taiwan (still at large); the Justice Department called the plot a “tangled web of lies,” and Supermicro said it is not a defendant, has placed two employees on leave, cut ties with the contractor, and termed the conduct a breach of its compliance policies.