The scheme allowed them to incorrectly get their hands on new iPhones. They were arrested by American justice and sentenced to prison.
US courts on Wednesday sentenced two 34-year-old Chinese men, Haotian Sun and Pengfei Xue, to prison terms of 57 and 54 months. Their fault? After he defrauded Apple for two years by laundering counterfeit iPhones, causing a net loss of more than $2.5 million. To do this, the two men sent fake, disguised smartphones to Apple for the group to repair. Since repair was impossible, Apple sent them new replacement devices, which the scammers then quickly resold.
“Sun and Xue received counterfeit iPhone shipments from Hong Kong in UPS mailboxes in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.”, American Justice details in a press releasespotted before capital. “They then sent the counterfeit iPhones, with forged serial and/or IMEI numbers, to Apple retail stores and Apple authorized service providers, including the Georgetown Apple Store.”continues the District of Columbia Attorney's Office.
Unable to fix them, the Cupertino company sent them real new iPhones in exchange. Between May 2017 and September 2019, the two men provided more than 6,000 phones. “Resulting in an expected loss of approximately $3.8 million and an actual loss of more than $2.5 million.”.
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After several months of investigation and three days of trial, Haotian Sun and Pengfei Xue received prison sentences of 57 and 54 months, respectively. The associated penalties include fines of $1,072,000, $397,800 and three years of supervised release.
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