Two Chinese nationals are facing a maximum of 20 years in prison after being convicted of mailing thousands of fake iPhones to Apple for repair in the hope they'd be replaced with new handsets.
This is according to the Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia following the decision by a federal jury to convict Maryland residents Haotian Sun, 33, and Pengfei Xue, also 33, of mail fraud and conspiracy to commit mail fraud.
Apple runs a one-year warranty scheme on its iPhones and offers to exchange malfunctioning products for shiny new ones.
The counterfeit phones were originally imported from Hong Kong via UPS mailboxes in the DC Metropolitan area.
The dodgy devices were then shipped onto Apple retail stores or Authorized Resellers with spoofed serial numbers and/or IMEI numbers.
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A bunch of people were indicted in 2019 in California for tricking Apple into taking back nearly 10,000 counterfeit smartphones and iPads and swapping them with legitimate hardware.
Apple is the most popular smartphone brand in China, taking the top spot from Honor in Q4 2023, despite renewed competition from homegrown hero Huawei, which surprised onlookers with its Mate 60 phone last year.
iPhones were also the most popular brand in Europe too, ousting Samsung at the top of the sales tree.
This Cyber News was published on www.theregister.com. Publication date: Thu, 22 Feb 2024 01:29:05 +0000