Haotian Sun (33) and Pengfei Xue (the same age) were found guilty of the scheme by a federal jury, a press release from the US Attorney’s Office reads.
Sun and Xue have been found guilty of “participating in a sophisticated scheme to defraud Apple out of millions of dollars’ worth of iPhones” and, like in other instances, the scam was based around submitting counterfeit iPhones to Apple for repair, which were then replaced by Apple with genuine iPhones.
According to the government’s evidence, between May 2017 and September 2019, Sun, Xue, and other conspirators defrauded Apple Inc. by submitting counterfeit iPhones to Apple for repair to get Apple to exchange them with genuine replacement iPhones. Sun and Xue received shipments of inauthentic iPhones from Hong Kong at UPS mailboxes throughout the D.C. Metropolitan area. They then submitted the fake iPhones, with spoofed serial numbers and/or IMEI numbers, to Apple retail stores and Apple Authorized Service Providers, including the Apple Store in Georgetown. Trial evidence showed that conspirators submitted more than 5,000 inauthentic phones to Apple during the conspiracy, intending to cause a loss of more than $3 million to Apple. Sun and Xue used various aliases during the scheme. They were arrested on December 5, 2019.
They could face up to 20 years in prison. Sentencing is scheduled for June 21, 2024.
This is strikingly similar to the Liao brothers’ nefarious activities: they got 41 months in prison for $6.1 million fraud with iPhones and iPads. Their plan was the same – import fake iPhones and iPads from China, exchange them for genuine Apple phones and tablets, and sell them abroad for a profit.
