Two Men Sentenced for Defrauding Apple of Millions of Dollars with iPhones in the US

TapTechNews October 4th news, on October 2nd, the US Department of Justice issued an announcement. Due to fraud worth more than $2.5 million of iPhones, US District Court Judge Timothy J. Kelly sentenced Haotian Sun (34 years old) to 57 months in prison and Pengfei Xue (34 years old) to 54 months.

The judge also ruled that after the prison term expires, the two also need to accept 3 years of supervised release. TapTechNews note: Supervised release refers to that after the end of imprisonment, the criminal is allowed to live in the community, but still needs to comply with specific supervision conditions. This is a follow-up supervision measure for prisoners, usually implemented after the expiration of the prison term, aiming to help them reintegrate into society and reduce the risk of reoffending.

In terms of compensation, the judge ruled that Haotian Sun needs to pay $1,072,000 (TapTechNews note: currently about 7.543 million RMB) in compensation; while Pengfei Xue needs to pay $397,800 (currently about 2.799 million RMB), and the two together need to pay $1,469,800 (currently about 10.342 million RMB).

Event tracing

TapTechNews reported in February this year that two men were convicted for a well-planned scam to defraud Apple of millions of dollars worth of iPhones. The core of this scam is to submit counterfeit iPhones for repair and then have Apple replace them with genuine iPhones.

Over a two-and-a-half-year period, Haotian Sun and Pengfei Xue submitted a total of more than 5,000 counterfeit iPhones:

According to evidence provided by the government, from May 2017 to September 2019, Haotian Sun, Pengfei Xue and other conspirators implemented fraud by submitting counterfeit iPhones for repair to Apple and having Apple exchange them with genuine iPhones. Haotian Sun and Pengfei Xue received counterfeit iPhones from Hong Kong in UPS mailboxes in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.

Then, they submitted counterfeit iPhones with forged serial numbers and/or IMEI numbers to Apple retail stores and authorized service providers, including the Apple Store in Georgetown.

Trial evidence showed that during the entire conspiracy process, the conspirators submitted more than 6,000 non-genuine phones, intending to cause Apple a loss of more than $3 million.

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Two men defrauded Apple of millions of dollars worth of iPhones by 'faking for real', facing up to 20 years in prison