United States v. Michael Nguyen, AKA Viet Quoc Nguyen

O’SCANNLAIN, Circuit Judge:

We are asked to decide, once again, whether a waiver of rights to appeal clause in a plea agreement is enforceable.

I

As part of an investigation into Vietnamese gang activity in the San Jose area, an undercover officer sold purportedly stolen computer chips to Michael Nguyen (“Nguyen”). At a later date, a second undercover officer, posing as an Intel Corporation employee, sold over $250,000 worth of Intel CPUs and hard drives to Nguyen, Lawrence Wong (“Wong”), and Jason Nguyen for under $75,000.

In April 1995, the undercover officer told Wong and Nguyen that he was…