The Justice Department announced on Thursday that two Chinese men have been sentenced for attempting to defraud Apple Inc. of millions of dollars by submitting counterfeit iPhones for repair.
Haotian Sun, 34, received a 57-month prison sentence and was ordered to pay $1,072,200 in restitution to Apple, along with a forfeiture of $53,610. His co-defendant, Pengfei Xue, also 34, was sentenced to 54 months in prison, required to pay $397,800 in restitution, and forfeited $19,890. Both men resided in Maryland, with Sun living in Baltimore and Xue in Germantown.
The DOJ revealed that Sun and Xue, along with their co-conspirators, had submitted counterfeit iPhones to Apple in hopes of receiving genuine replacements.
They procured fake iPhones from Hong Kong, using spoofed serial or IMEI numbers, and sent them to Apple stores and authorized service providers.
Over the course of their conspiracy, they submitted more than 6,000 counterfeit phones, resulting in losses exceeding $2.5 million for the tech giant.
After a five-day trial, Sun was convicted of conspiracy to commit mail fraud, as well as one count of mail fraud, while Xue was convicted on six counts of mail fraud.
Peoplesmind
