US Customs supervisor busted for stealing hardware from Homeland Security PCs
Recorded: Sept. 13, 2026, 2:09 p.m.
| Original | Summarized |
US Customs supervisor busted for stealing Core i7 CPUs, RAM, and hard drives from Homeland Security PCs, damage estimated at $105,800 — stolen tech swapped with inferior hardware and cashed out on Newegg | Tom's Hardware
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(Image credit: Getty Images) Copy link X Share this article 16 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter According to a report from The Maine Wire, the FBI has arrested and charged Terry “Jiajia” Liu, a Customs and Border Protection supervisor based in Calais, Maine, for theft and damage to government property. Liu allegedly stole computer hardware, including Intel 14th Generation Raptor Lake Refresh processors, memory modules, and hard drives, from at least 46 Department of Homeland Security computers across three Maine border facilities. They replaced the stolen parts with inferior hardware and exchanged the stolen equipment through Newegg’s trade-in program for store credit.Go deeper with TH Premium: CPU (Image credit: Tom's Hardware)Intel VP Robert Hallock sets Nova Lake expectations, teases return to Raptor Lake for DDR4 platformsCPU scaling with DLSSIntel's one-two punch plan in desktop CPUs is taking shapeBenchmarking AMD's BC-250, offering Steam Machine-like performance at half the priceAMD splits Zen 7 into three EPYC families for 2028 and starts selling server CPUs by the agent Liu’s official responsibilities were limited to information-technology support, so they did not have access to modify any government computer. Port Director Theodore Cummings made the restriction abundantly clear to Liu in a written order: “Please do not move any computers or computer parts.” However, criminals rarely listen.Hidden surveillance cameras captured Liu opening government computers and swapping hardware during the midnight shift. The perpetrator would take the systems to a training room to commit the crime. One camera recording showed Liu using a screwdriver to scrape thermal paste off a processor and installing a replacement chip in one system. Meanwhile, another recording caught Liu removing a memory module from a system and storing it in their desk drawer.Latest Videos FromTom's HardwareWatch full video here: According to the affidavit, investigators found that thirty-nine computers had their processors replaced, six machines with memory modules swapped, and eight had hard drive changes. The original systems used Raptor Lake Refresh chips but were later discovered to have older hardware, sometimes downgraded to Pentium chips. Beyond the processor swap, other computers had less memory and storage capacity than their original configurations.Instead of trying to sell the stolen hardware on the open second-hand market, Liu used a less conspicuous approach: Newegg’s Trade-In program. According to investigators, Liu sent 13 emails between a personal account and an official CBP email address containing shipping labels and trade-in receipts for processor models matching the missing components from the government computers. You may like AI Cargo thieves ram security escorts to hijack hardware shipments in California Senior PC store staff accused of running secret rival shop with stolen inventory Nine indicted by Taiwan over illegal export of Nvidia B300 GPUs to China — details reveal five-point strategy to exploit and avoid customs controls The Newegg trade-in offers varied between $200 and $210 per processor. According to the transaction records from the U.S. retailer, Liu traded in Core i7 Raptor Lake Refresh chips 16 times over 14 months, from May 2025 to July 2026. Investigators also found three $200 credits from Newegg in Liu's American Express records.During an interview, Liu confessed to replacing hardware in the government computers with lower-performing parts bought on Amazon and Newegg. They also acknowledged submitting the government-owned parts to Newegg's Trade-In program. At first, Liu claimed their actions were motivated by a desire to improve the computers' performance and how long computer repairs took. However, they later admitted that the changes resulted in degraded performance.Stay On the Cutting Edge: Get the Tom's Hardware NewsletterGet Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.Contact me with news and offers from other Future brandsReceive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsorsBy submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.Restoring the stolen hardware could cost about $20,460, while fully replacing all 46 compromised computers with equivalent hardware would cost an estimated $105,800. However, additional labor to configure each system for government use will drive the bill even higher. Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds. See all comments (16) Zhiye Liu News Editor, RAM Reviewer & SSD Technician Zhiye Liu is a news editor, memory reviewer, and SSD tester at Tom’s Hardware. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM. Read more Tech Industry
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16 Comments Comment from the forums usertests One camera recording showed Liu using a screwdriver to scrape thermal paste off a processor and installing a replacement chip in one system.That's bad form! The original systems used Raptor Lake Refresh chips but were later discovered to have older hardware, sometimes downgraded to Pentium chips.Finally, the Pentium Gold G7400 becomes useful. Reply kuramakitsune Hang on that math doesn't pass the sniff test it said 46 computers? And occasionally some ram. Reply TechieTwo THIS is why they created prisons... Reply USAFRet kuramakitsune said:Hang on that math doesn't pass the sniff test it said 46 computers? And occasionally some ram. Reply usertests Government workers don't need 14th gen i7s. Free this man! Reply USAFRet usertests said:Government workers don't need 14th gen i7s. Free this man!In your esteemed opinion, who DOES need one? Reply usertests USAFRet said:In your esteemed opinion, who DOES need one? The "i5" tier is adequate for gamers, e.g. the Ryzen 5 9600X or 7600X3D, i5-12400, Core Ultra 5 250K, etc. Next-gen consoles are likely to have Zen 6 with modest core counts and clock speeds, so keeping up with gaming CPU requirements for the next 10+ years should be relatively easy. Quad-core Skylake to Comet Lake is adequate for the vast majority of office workers. Even the lowest-end chips are coming with around 6 mixed cores now. The lowly 5-core Wildcat Lake Core 3 304 is faster than an i5-8600K. That can come soldered onto a motherboard (making it harder to steal than these socketed CPUs, lol) and put into VESA-mount mini PCs. We hit various plateaus in computing requirements, and now the low-end is becoming overkill. That's a good thing! Another example: the Core Ultra 5 225T is faster than an i9-10900K. Rather than the CPU performance, my complaint would be about the iGPU (for gaming without dGPU), as it's half of the Xe-LPG cores that Arrow Lake-S has on the 245 and up. I would pair any of the CPUs mentioned with 64+ GB of RAM... if it was cheap. 16 GB being fine for the office worker, but if (when) we see a return to ~$2/GB, it's no problem to have 32 GB. Reply USAFRet usertests said:Professionals doing a lot of video editing, code compilation, etc. Anyone for whom time = money.Civil engineers on an air base, managing the whole plumbing and/or electrical scenario in AutoCad. Reply Panda78 kuramakitsune said:Hang on that math doesn't pass the sniff test it said 46 computers? And occasionally some ram. Reply USAFRet Panda78 said:They said at the end the 100k was for fully replacing all the computers rather than just the missing parts. Why they included that, I don't know, but it does seem like something government would do.Warranty. Whomever supplied those systems is not going to honor a warranty with parts that it did not come with. Reply View All 16 Comments Show more comments Tom's Hardware is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site. Add as a preferred source on Google Terms and conditions Contact Future's experts Privacy policy Cookies policy Accessibility Statement Advertise with us About us Coupons Careers © |
A US Customs and Border Protection supervisor named Terry “Jiajia” Liu was arrested and charged for stealing and damaging government property, specifically computer hardware, from Department of Homeland Security facilities. Liu allegedly stole components including Intel 14th Generation Raptor Lake Refresh processors, memory modules, and hard drives from at least forty-six Department of Homeland Security computers located across three Maine border facilities. The criminal operation involved swapping these stolen parts with inferior hardware and monetizing the stolen equipment through Newegg's trade-in program. Investigators determined that Liu utilized shipping labels and trade-in receipts, obtained through communication between personal and official email accounts, to facilitate the exchange of the stolen processors and other components. Surveillance footage captured Liu engaging in the physical act of swapping the hardware, including scraping thermal paste off processors and installing replacement chips, as well as removing memory modules from systems. The scope of the theft extended beyond just processors; investigators found that thirty-nine computers had their processors replaced, six machines had memory modules swapped, and eight had hard drive changes. Furthermore, the stolen components were often downgraded, with some systems discovered to have older hardware, sometimes relegated to Pentium chips, and other systems possessing less memory and storage capacity than their original configurations. Liu claimed his motivation for the theft was to enhance computer performance and reduce repair times; however, investigators concluded that the hardware modifications resulted in degraded system performance. The financial implications of the incident are substantial. Restoring the stolen hardware alone was estimated to cost approximately $20,460. If the goal were to fully replace the hardware across all forty-six compromised computers with equivalent specifications, the estimated cost reached $105,800, a figure which is expected to increase due to the extensive labor required to configure each system for government use. The commentary surrounding the case touched upon the discussion of processor value, the context of government procurement, and the general considerations regarding the adequate resource requirements for various professional and consumer applications. |