US quant trading giant Tower Research Capital is under investigation in China on suspicion of smuggling advanced trading hardware into the country.
Chinese customs authorities are examining whether New York-based Tower installed customised processors and networking hardware at Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE) that did not match an earlier customs declaration, according to three people with knowledge of the investigation.
The Shanghai Special Commissioner’s Office of China’s General Administration of Customs, the watchdog carrying out the probe, has told Tower not to remove equipment from the exchange’s server room before the investigation is concluded, one of the people said.