Multimillion dollar fraudsters jailed over fake iPhone scam

Almost five years after they were arrested in December 2019, Maryland residents Haotian Sun and Pengfei Xue, have been sentenced to 57 months and 54 months jail time respectively. The sentence follows their grand jury conviction in February 2024, where their scheme was detailed over more than three days of testimony.

According to Justice.gov, between May 2017 and September 2019, the pair and other unnamed conspirators repeatedly defrauded Apple. In each of more than 6,000 cases, fake iPhones would be received from Hong Kong, and then sent on to various UPS mailboxes in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area.

The pair would then take one of these fake iPhones to Apple Stores including the one in Georgetown, and have it be exchanged for genuine ones.

The total loss to Apple is estimated to have been more than $2.5 million. As part of their sentencing, Sun has been ordered to serve three years of supervised release after the prison sentence, and pay $1,072,000 in restitution.

Co-conspirator Xue is also to serve three years of supervised release, and is ordered to pay $397,800.

Separately, a similar scam in southern California netted a criminal gang around $12 million worth of iPhones until they were arrested in May 2024.