Taiwanese prosecutors have detained Chang Teng-lung, a senior business development manager at NVIDIA, in an investigation into the alleged smuggling of AI servers equipped with B300 chips into China. Chang was taken in for questioning on July 24 after the Keelung District Prosecutors Office directed investigators from the Taipei field office to search his home and workplace. Prosecutors later said he was strongly suspected of wrongdoing and posed risks of flight, evidence destruction, and collusion, and the court approved a request to hold him incommunicado. He is the seventh defendant detained in the case.
Approval letter said to have cleared the key review stage
Prosecutors allege that Chang knew AI servers assembled by Supermicro and fitted with NVIDIA B300 chips were barred from being sold to China, but still issued an approval letter during customer eligibility checks. That document allegedly allowed non-compliant orders to pass inspection by the relevant government review unit.
In the account described in the report, that approval served as the critical gate in the entire smuggling chain. The later layers of concealment only worked because the order had already been cleared at that point.
Three-stage route outlined by the investigation
An exclusive investigation by Mirror Media said the operation ran in three steps:
- Front companies placed orders with Supermicro for AI servers carrying B300 chips.
- The group then rented colocation space from Chief Telecom to create the appearance that the machines would remain in use in Taiwan.
- After clearing inspection, the servers were exported through Keelung Port to Japan, then rerouted through Hong Kong, and eventually entered mainland China. The exports were allegedly declared with false documentation, exposing those involved to document forgery charges.
Three rounds of enforcement action
The Keelung District Prosecutors Office and a Coast Guard Administration task force have advanced the case in three waves.
In the first operation on May 20, authorities intercepted more than 50 AI servers with an estimated market value of NT$700 million. Three people, including a man surnamed Yu, were detained with court approval.
A second round on June 29 targeted Supermicro’s Taiwan branch, Aetina, and Chief Telecom. Three more people were then held incommunicado.
The third round, on July 24, focused on Chang inside NVIDIA. With that move, the total number of detained suspects in the case rose to seven.
Named suspects and the structure prosecutors are examining
Those identified in the report include Wang Hsiang-yi, a sales manager at Supermicro Taiwan; Lu Yang-kai, general manager of Aetina; and Chang Jui-tsang, Supermicro’s Taiwan regional sales manager. The report says Chang Jui-tsang has gone missing after being indicted by U.S. authorities.
The alleged network, as described in the report, spans Chinese official funding, insiders at NVIDIA, Taiwanese gang elements, and operators tied to fraud and money laundering.
Resale spread and sentencing gap
Mirror Media reported that one server cost about NT$13 million at the original price and could be resold in China for nearly NT$40 million, leaving a spread of more than three times. The report says that profit gap helps explain why the operation continued for three years.
It also contrasted the penalties involved. In Taiwan, drug smuggling can carry the death penalty in the most serious cases, while trafficking restricted chips is described in the report as generally punishable under breach of trust or document forgery statutes, with a maximum sentence of less than five years. The same report said some Taiwanese gang figures had shifted from drug trafficking to chip smuggling because the returns were higher and the risks were lower.
Case emerged from a narcotics probe
The investigation did not begin as a chip case. The Coast Guard Administration was originally looking into a drug trafficking matter when officers repeatedly heard terms such as “B300” and “received” on intercepted calls. Investigators first suspected the words might refer to a new narcotics code, but extended surveillance failed to uncover any drug transactions.
After digging deeper, authorities concluded the terms referred to NVIDIA’s high-end chips, with specifications the report said were one tier above the B200 model previously seized by U.S. authorities. Prosecutors and the Coast Guard then worked with U.S. counterparts to review shipping records, which led to the chip smuggling case.