A $1 million iPhone repair scam that lasted for more than three years resulted in a Chinese man receiving a real prison sentence and being forced to pay nearly $2 million in damages and fines.
Haiteng Wu, 32, tricked Apple into accepting fake non-working iPhones under warranty and replacing them with real smartphones. The scheme used extremely convincing fake iPhones available in China. Although they run the Android operating system, they have been disabled so that they cannot be turned on. Also they were given fake serial numbers and IMEI numbers to clone genuine iPhones that were still under warranty.
For employees of Apple service centers, the phones looked like real ones, and the database indicated that smartphones were under warranty. When they couldn’t turn it on, they replaced it with a real iPhone. The Ministry of Justice said that Haiteng Wu was sentenced but released immediately, as he had already served 26 months in prison awaiting sentencing.
In May 2020, Wu pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud. The judge also ordered Wu to pay the $987,000 Apple lost and the same amount in damages.
Haiteng Wu immigrated to the US in 2013 to study engineering. After receiving his master’s degree in 2015, he took a job in the United States, but then began to engage in fraud, which dragged on for 3.5 years. Two other participants in the scheme, including Wu’s wife, also pleaded guilty. She was sentenced to five months, and the third is awaiting sentencing.
Source: ixbt
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