Two men face up to 20 years in prison after defrauding Apple of millions of dollars in iPhones

On February 21, two men were found guilty of "an elaborate scam that defrauded Apple of millions of dollars in iPhones," according to the U.S. Department of Justice. The core of the scam involves submitting a counterfeit iPhone to Apple for repair, which then replaces it with a genuine iPhone.

Noting that the U.S. Department of Justice issued a press release on Tuesday stating that Haotian Sun (33) and PengfeiXue (33) were convicted by a federal jury of carrying out the scheme. The two Chinese nationals living in Maryland were charged with conspiracy to commit mail fraud. They could face up to 20 years in prison, with sentencing scheduled for June 21, 2024. It is reported that over a period of two and a half years, Haotian Sun and PengfeiXue submitted more than 5,000 counterfeit iPhones to Apple:

According to evidence provided by the government, between May 2017 and September 2019 During this period, Haotian Sun, PengfeiXue and other conspirators committed fraud by submitting counterfeit iPhones to Apple for repair and defrauding Apple into exchanging genuine iPhones. Haotian Sun and PengfeiXue received the non-genuine iPhones from Hong Kong via UPS mailboxes in the Washington, D.C., metro area. They then submitted the counterfeit iPhones with fake serial numbers and/or IMEI numbers to Apple retail stores and authorized service providers, including the Apple Store in Georgetown. Trial evidence showed that throughout the course of the conspiracy, the conspirators submitted more than 5,000 non-genuine mobile phones to Apple with the intent of causing Apple losses of more than $3 million.

This is not the first time this type of repair scam has made the news, in fact, other scammers have used almost the exact same trick in the past.

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