Singapore Held Alice Huang's Passport for Eight Months
Singapore seized the passport of Alice Huang, the former Megaspeed chief executive at the centre of the Nvidia affair, in the middle of last year and kept it for eight months while it sought American help with its investigation into whether advanced Nvidia chips reached China.
CBS News reported that officials in Washington were "not forthcoming" when Singapore asked the Justice Department and the FBI for assistance, and that no substantive help has arrived since. Singapore's home affairs ministry confirmed in a statement this week that it had approached both agencies.
And the sequence is now on the record. Huang, a Chinese national, flew into Singapore for a voluntary interview with investigators from the US Bureau of Industry and Security, which sits inside the commerce department, and Singaporean police interviewed her the same day before impounding her passport.
The Americans had requested that interview as part of a post shipment verification check, a process for establishing whether imported goods reached the recipient named on the paperwork.
By the start of this year no charge had been filed and the police returned the passport. She was barred from coming back, with the ministry saying she had given "inaccurate information" that played down her role at Megaspeed.
But the case itself is unresolved, and it turns on paperwork. Investigators have been asking since early last year whether Megaspeed worked with Supermicro to send servers carrying advanced Nvidia chips to China, and the suspected offences are false declarations about those purchases. Megaspeed denies wrongdoing.
A second source told CBS News the servers are believed to have gone to Malaysia, with investigators suspecting that some or all were then shipped onward to China. The New York Times reported that Malaysia kept the chips and rented out data centre capacity to China instead, and Malaysia's prime minister said at the end of last week that there was "no indication" of any of those chips being shipped out again.
Supermicro gave only "limited cooperation", the ministry said, and six other people linked to Megaspeed are wanted for questioning, none of whom has been in the country since the inquiry opened. Five people have been charged in a separate fraud case tied to suspected transfers of Nvidia chips.
So Singapore held the passport of a woman it never charged, gave it back, barred her return and is still waiting on records from Washington that it says it needs. Beijing has dismissed the spying claims as groundless speculation, and Huang faces no criminal charge in the city state.
Singapore held Alice Huang's passport for eight months from the middle of last year
Washington was "not forthcoming" when Singapore asked the Justice Department and the FBI for help
She was never charged and was barred from returning to Singapore
Investigators suspect Megaspeed servers went to Malaysia and then on to China
Six other people linked to Megaspeed are wanted for questioning
Source: CBS News
