A Washington, D.C., federal jury convicted two Chinese nationals on Tuesday, for being part of a scheme in which they submitted over 5,000 fake iPhones to Apple for repair, intending to dupe the tech giant out of over $3 million.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced the conviction Tuesday afternoon, saying 33-year-old Hoatian Sun, also known as Hao Sun, Jack Sun, and Frank Sun, of Baltimore, as well as 33-year-old Pengfei Xue of Germantown, Maryland, were convicted of mail fraud and conspiracy to commit mail fraud.
The DOJ said court documents and evidence presented show that between May 2017 and September 2019, Sun and Xue, along with other co-conspirators, engaged in a fraudulent scheme in which they submitted counterfeit iPhones to Apple for repair.
In exchange for the broken inauthentic iPhones, Apple would provide them with genuine iPhones.
The two Chinese nationals would receive shipments of the fake iPhones that were sent from Hong Kong to their UPS mailboxes throughout the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.
The suspects would then submit the counterfeit iPhones that had spoofed serial numbers and IMEI numbers to Apple Authorized Service Providers and Apple retail stores.
Apple did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment on the matter.
According to the DOJ, Sun opened eight UPS Store mailboxes in 2017 by providing his Maryland driver’s license and university identification card.
Both Sun and Xue were arrested by U.S. postal inspectors in December 2019.
A federal judge will sentence the men on June 21, and both face up to 20 years in prison.
