A fifth individual has been charged in Singapore’s server-fraud case linked to Nvidia chips, The Straits Times reported on 13 November. Shi Bingzhe, a 34-year-old Chinese national, was handed 41 charges of acquiring the benefits of criminal conduct, and two companies were charged alongside him, according to the report and a Singapore Police Force release.
Charge sheets state that Shi, director of Superphi and chief operating officer of NJ Global Financial, allowed the two companies to acquire 917 servers from Aperia International across 41 transactions between May 2024 and February 2025, the report says. That is about 22 servers per transaction and about 92 a month over those ten months, by our arithmetic.
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The key insight: As we read the report, the case now reaches the companies that acquired the servers: the 41 new company charges are for acquiring benefits of criminal conduct, not for the false representation charged in July.
Police said Shi and the companies had reasonable grounds to believe the servers represented benefits from Aperia International’s criminal conduct, according to The Straits Times. Aperia International was among four companies charged in July with false representation over the same case.
Superphi faces six charges and NJ Global Financial faces 35, the report says, so NJ Global accounts for 35 of the 41 company charges, or about 85%, by our arithmetic. Lawyers for Shi and the two companies sought an adjournment to take further instructions, and the cases return to court on 4 January 2027.
The prosecution offered bail of S$300,000 and asked for Shi to be electronically tagged, citing the seriousness of the offences; the judge granted the tagging request, the report says. Shi’s lawyer, who argued against tagging, said his client has been cooperating with investigations. The charges have not been tested in court.
The 41 company charges filed on 13 November by firm, and the individuals and companies charged in the case so far, as reported by The Straits Times citing charge sheets and a police statement. Charges, not findings.
The Case So Far
In total, five individuals and six companies have now been charged in the case, which involves fraud by false representation on the purchase of servers, police said. The other four individuals are Aaron Woon Guo Jie, Alan Wei Zhaolun, Li Ming and Jenny Lim, according to the report.
The four companies charged in July are Aperia, A-Speed Infotech and Aperia Cloud Services (II), together known as the Aperia Group, and Luxuriate Your Life, which were linked to exporting servers that might contain Nvidia chips to Malaysia, The Straits Times says. Police have issued a prohibition of disposal order on a good class bungalow valued at about S$55 million and seized about S$1 million from bank accounts linked to the probe.
The case came to light after a US investigation into whether Chinese start-up DeepSeek had circumvented US restrictions on advanced Nvidia chips by buying them through third countries, including Singapore, according to the report. As we read the report, the new charges concern companies that acquired servers from Aperia International, while the July charges concerned the Aperia Group and Luxuriate Your Life.
If convicted, Shi could be jailed for up to 10 years, fined up to S$500,000, or both, for each charge, The Straits Times says. Each company faces a fine of up to S$1 million or twice the value of the benefits from criminal conduct, whichever is higher, per charge.
The Structural Read
As we read the charge sheets as reported, the size of each deal is the detail to watch: 917 servers across 41 transactions is about 22 servers a deal, by our arithmetic, and the report gives no value for them.
As we read the report, Singapore is treating the buyers and the sellers in one case: police count five individuals and six companies charged, with the next hearing for the new defendants on 4 January 2027.
Singapore Police Force statement, as reported by The Straits Times, 13 November 2026
“they will not hesitate to take firm action against businesses and individuals who engage in dishonest and criminal practices”
Three Implications
FOR SERVER RESELLERS Charge sheets name the buyers of 917 servers from Aperia International; each company charge carries a fine of up to S$1 million or twice the value of the benefits, whichever is higher, the report says.
FOR NVIDIA The report links the case to a US investigation into whether DeepSeek bought advanced Nvidia chips through third countries, including Singapore; Nvidia is not accused of wrongdoing in the report.
FOR THE CASE Five individuals and six companies are now charged, police said; the new defendants return to court on 4 January 2027.
The framework says: “This isn’t just a supply chain problem. It’s a fundamental constraint on the speed of AI transformation, and it’s creating geopolitical leverage that operates independently of who has the best models.”
As we read it, the Singapore case shows that leverage being enforced at the level of individual server deals: 41 transactions, 917 servers, ten months. The framework predates these charges and does not discuss Singapore or Aperia.
What Is Not Established
The report does not say where the 917 servers ended up, whether they contained Nvidia chips, or what they were worth; it describes the servers only as linked to the case. Nvidia is not accused of wrongdoing in the report. The per-transaction and per-month figures are our arithmetic and assume the stated count and dates.
We read The Straits Times report in full and the title of the police release; the release body did not load for us, so police statements here are as reported by The Straits Times. We did not contact the defendants or their lawyers for this piece.
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Singapore’s Nvidia-linked server case now counts five individuals and six companies charged. The newest charges cover 917 servers bought from Aperia International in 41 transactions over ten months, about 22 servers a deal by our arithmetic, and the cases return to court on 4 January 2027.
A note on sourcing. Every fact about the charges comes from The Straits Times report of 13 November 2026, which cites charge sheets and a Singapore Police Force statement and which we read in full; the police release body did not load for us. Charges are allegations and have not been tested in court. Servers per transaction, servers per month and NJ Global’s share of the company charges are our arithmetic. The defendants were not contacted for this piece. This piece is not investment advice.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
