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Two Chinese nationals have been sentenced to up to 20 years in prison after being found guilty of mailing thousands of fake iPhones to Apple for repair in hopes of being replaced with new devices.
This follows a federal jury’s decision to convict Haotian Sun, 33, of Maryland, and Pengfei Xue, also 33, of the District of Columbia, of mail fraud and conspiracy to commit mail fraud. This was announced by the Judiciary Bureau.
According to the Justice Department, the duo submitted more than 5,000 “non-genuine” iPhones to the tech giant between May 2017 and September 2019 with “the intent to cause Apple more than $3 million in losses.” .
Apple offers a one-year warranty on iPhones, offering to replace your defective product with a shiny new one. It was this plan that the criminals attempted to defraud.
In a statement, the Justice Department admitted that he and his unnamed co-conspirators “sent counterfeit iPhones to Apple for repair in order to have Apple replace them with genuine replacement iPhones.”
The counterfeit phones were originally imported from Hong Kong via a UPS mailbox in the DC metropolitan area. The compromised devices were then shipped to Apple retail stores or authorized resellers with falsified serial numbers or IMEI numbers.
“In 2017, Mr. Sun opened eight UPS Store mailboxes using his Maryland driver’s license and college ID. U.S. Postal Inspectors in December 2019 discovered that Mr. Sun and Shwe He was arrested,” the Justice Department said.
Found guilty, the two men are scheduled to be sentenced on June 21, with the maximum term for each being 20 years, although the length of their sentences will be considered based on U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors. .
Apple has been contacted for comment.
Fake iPhone scams for new iPhones are not new. In 2019, a number of people were indicted in California for tricking Apple into collecting nearly 10,000 counterfeit smartphones and iPads and replacing them with legitimate hardware.
Apple is the most popular smartphone brand in China and will take the top spot from Honor in the fourth quarter of 2023, despite new competition from domestic hero Huawei, which surprised onlookers with its Mate 60 smartphone last year. I stole it.
The iPhone also became the most popular brand in Europe, displacing Samsung at the top of the sales tree. ®
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