The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that two Chinese nationals were convicted by a federal jury in the District of Columbia for orchestrating a complex fraud scheme aimed at defrauding Apple out of 5,000 iPhones valued at over $3 million. The elaborate scam, running from May 2017 to September 2019, involved the submission of counterfeit iPhones to Apple in exchange for genuine replacement devices.
The individuals, identified as Haotian Sun, also known by several aliases including Hao Sun, Jack Sun, and Frank Sun, 33, from Baltimore, Maryland, and Pengfei Xue, 33, from Germantown, Maryland, along with their accomplices, engineered the receipt of fake iPhones from Hong Kong. These devices were then submitted to Apple retail stores and Apple Authorized Service Providers, exploiting the company’s repair policies by using devices with spoofed serial numbers and/or IMEI numbers to masquerade as legitimate claims.
Evidence presented during the trial revealed that in 2017, Sun had established eight UPS Store mailboxes utilizing his Maryland driver’s license and university identification card to facilitate the scheme. The duo’s activities eventually led to their arrest by U.S. postal inspectors in December 2019, highlighting the concerted effort by federal agencies to clamp down on sophisticated fraud operations.
Both Sun and Xue were found guilty of mail fraud and conspiracy to commit mail fraud, facing up to 20 years in prison each. Their sentencing is scheduled for June 21, with the final judgment to be determined by a federal district court judge, taking into account the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, among other statutory considerations.
