Pair faces 20 years in jail over iPhone fraud scheme [Updated] – Uplaza

A federal jury discovered two Chinese language males dwelling in Maryland responsible Tuesday in a faux iPhone fraud scheme. They tried to defraud Apple in a $3 million scheme to exchange faux iPhones with actual ones, the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace for the District of Columbia stated.

Haotian Solar and Pengfei Xue’s mail fraud convictions carry a most sentence of 20 years in jail.

UPDATE: 5 years after their arrest, Solar was sentenced to 57 months in jail and Xue was sentenced to 54 months in jail, based on Justice.gov, for conspiracy to commit mail fraud and mail fraud. And the choose ordered Solar to serve three years of supervised launch and pay $1,072,000 in restitution. Choose Kelly ordered Xue to serve three years of supervised launch and pay $397,800 in restitution.

Pair discovered responsible in faux iPhone fraud scheme price $3 million

In one other iPhone fraud scheme, a federal jury in U.S. District Court docket within the District of Columbia discovered Solar and Xue, each 33 years previous, responsible of mail fraud in addition to conspiracy to commit mail fraud, a staff led by U.S. Lawyer Matthew M. Graves stated.

The crimes, described as a “sophisticated scheme,” concerned 5,000 faux iPhones from Hong Kong submitted for restore at approved areas within the Washington, D.C., space in an try to get real replacements price a complete of about $3 million.

Right here’s how the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace described what went down:

In line with the federal government’s proof, between Could 2017 and September 2019, Solar, Xue and different conspirators defrauded Apple Inc. by submitting counterfeit iPhones to Apple for restore to get Apple to alternate them with real alternative iPhones. Solar and Xue obtained shipments of inauthentic iPhones from Hong Kong at UPS mailboxes all through the D.C. Metropolitan space.

They then submitted the faux iPhones, with spoofed serial numbers and/or IMEI numbers, to Apple retail shops and Apple Approved Service Suppliers, together with the Apple Retailer in Georgetown. Trial proof confirmed that conspirators submitted greater than 5,000 inauthentic telephones to Apple throughout the conspiracy, desiring to trigger a lack of greater than $3 million to Apple.

Solar and Xue, who used numerous aliases within the faux iPhone fraud scheme, have been arrested on December 5, 2019 after the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and Homeland Safety Investigations regarded into the matter.

As for the potential 20 years within the slammer, U.S. District Court docket Choose Timothy J. Kelly scheduled sentencing for June 21, 2024.

Supply: U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace, District of Columbia

We initially revealed this put up on February 21, 2024, then on up to date it with sentencing data on October 3, 2024.