Two Men From China Sentenced To 6,000 IPhone Fraud, Apple Loses IDR 38, Billion

Apple illustration (photo: Pixabay)

JAKARTA - Two foreign nationals from China were sentenced to participate in the fraudulent scheme against Apple Inc. (Apple) worth millions of dollars for the iPhone, by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ).

The two perpetrators are Haotian Sun (34) who is a Chinese citizen and lives in Baltimore, and Pengfei Xue (34) a Chinese citizen who lives in Germanytown, Maryland.

Based on court documents and evidence submitted at trial, the two foreigners, along with their colleagues, carried out a fraud scheme from May 2017 to September 2019.

In this scam, they tried to apply for a fake iPhone to Apple to be fixed, hoping to get a replacement for the original iPhone.

They also received fake iPhone shipments from Hong Kong and sent them to the Apple Store in Washington, DC, as well as to Apple's official service providers. At least, there are more than 6,000 fake phones shipped to Apple, causing losses of more than 2.5 million US dollars (Rp38.7 billion).

Sun and Xue were found guilty on charges of conspiracy and fraud through posts after a five-day trial.

As a result, Sun was sentenced to 57 months in prison, three years in parole, and ordered to pay compensation of USD 1,072,200 (IDR 16.6 billion) to Apple and a decision on confiscated money of USD 53,610 (IDR 830 million).

Meanwhile, Xue was sentenced to 54 months in prison, three years in parole, and ordered to pay compensation of US$397,800 (Rp6.16 billion) to Apple and a decision on confiscated money of US$19,890 (Rp308 million).

The case was investigated by the US Post Inspection Service (USPIS) and Homeland Security Investigation (HSI), with prosecutors from the Department of Justice's Criminal Division handling it.