It's my belief that they have been making deals with shady groups in an attempt to improve their bottom line
As far as the threats of violence go, if they are real, my thoughts are that they are from rival shady groups, or from disgruntled customers.
In either case, based on the timing of events I would deduce that the threats are only recent.. like within this past week, and yifu has seen this as a golden opportunity to use it as an excuse for the mess that's been made.

Like when someone is running late to work.. and it's definitely the fault of traffic.. not the fact they left late to begin with.

But it's all speculation. The only thing we can confirm, is the existence of the chips, and their successful shipping to an international export/import specialist company.