Both Haotian Sun, 34, of Baltimore, Maryland, United States and Pengfei Xue, 34, of Germantown, Maryland, USA are citizens of China. They are accused of for participating in a scheme to defraud Apple Inc. out of millions of dollars worth of iPhones.
Founded in Los Altos, California, USA on April 1, 1976, Apple is based in Cupertino, California. Tim Cook, 63, has been the chief executive officer of the technology company since 2011.
How did Haotian Sun and Pengfei Xue defraud Apple?
From May 2017 to September 2019, Sun, Xue and their co-conspirators submitted counterfeit iPhones to Apple for repair to induce the company to replace the counterfeit phones with genuine iPhones. As part of the scheme, they would receive shipments of inauthentic iPhones from Hong Kong, China at UPS mailboxes throughout the Washington, D.C., USA metropolitan area.
With spoofed serial numbers or international mobile equipment identity (IMEI) numbers, Sun, Xue and their co-conspirators submitted the fake iPhones to Apple retail stores. During the conspiracy, they submitted more than 6,000 inauthentic phones to Apple, which caused a loss of more than $2.5 million.
On February 20, 2024, both Sun and Xue were convicted of conspiracy to commit mail fraud. The former was also convicted of mail fraud and the latter was also convicted of six counts of mail fraud.
On October 2, 2024, Sun and Xue were sentenced for participating in the scheme. Their case was investigated by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and Homeland Security Investigations.
Sun was sentenced to 57 months in prison and three years of supervised release. He was ordered to pay $1,072,200 in restitution to Apple and a forfeiture money judgment of $53,610.
Xue was sentenced to 54 months in prison and three years of supervised release. He was ordered to pay $397,800 in restitution to Apple and a forfeiture money judgment of $19,890.
CONAN Daily 