GoKawiilCBP IT Supervisor Charged With Swapping Government PC Parts for Newegg Store Credit
The FBI has charged Terry "Jiajia" Liu, a Customs and Border Protection IT supervisor in Calais, Maine, with stealing processors, memory, and hard drives from at least 46 Homeland Security computers across three border facilities. Liu allegedly replaced the components with cheaper, often outdated parts and traded the originals to Newegg's trade-in program for store credit, causing an estimated $105,800 in damage.
GoKawiil's interpretation of the reporting above, not reported fact.
The case highlights how easily insider access to government IT systems can be abused when oversight is limited, even after explicit written warnings against tampering with hardware. It also shows how retail trade-in programs can inadvertently become a laundering channel for stolen electronics, raising questions about verification practices at companies like Newegg.
- Liu swapped high-end Raptor Lake Refresh CPUs and other parts with inferior hardware, sometimes downgrading to Pentium chips.
- Surveillance footage caught the thefts happening during midnight shifts using a screwdriver to remove thermal paste and chips.
- Stolen components were funneled through Newegg's trade-in program instead of resold openly, netting store credit.
Source: tomshardware.com — Zhiye Liu, 2026-09-12
Published there as: “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”
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