A group of people defrauded Apple of 2.3 million euros. For years, Apple did not recognize that it was receiving counterfeit iPhones. Two main suspects in the case have now been convicted.
The US Department of Justice writes that it has sentenced two men to prison for developing a sophisticated system to defraud Apple.
The group around the two convicted people submitted more than 6,000 counterfeit devices to Apple, causing a loss of more than $2.5 million (approximately €2.3 million).
What does the N symbol mean on your phone?
More videos
Fake devices were connected to real iPhones
How did the scam work? The scammers tricked Apple into accepting counterfeit iPhones for returns by forging serial numbers or IMEI numbers. At first glance, the devices appeared real because the fake data had been connected to real devices. The return seemed genuine to Apple because they could find real people behind it.
What is the IMEI? IMEI stands for “International Mobile Station Equipment Identity” and is an important number in your cell phone: every cell phone with a SIM card can be clearly identified via the IMEI.
However, a tip helped them track down the fraudsters: US law enforcement intercepted packages and confirmed that thousands of counterfeit cell phones had been sent from China and then submitted to Apple for repair either by mail or in person. These counterfeit models were either out of warranty or contained counterfeit parts.
However, Apple mistakenly believed that these must be real iPhones with a real warranty and replaced thousands of counterfeit devices. Although Apple has put in place measures against such fraud, the fraudsters got around this by using aliases and opening new mailboxes.
Almost 5 years in prison and heavy fines for the fraudsters
How did things end? The first person was sentenced to 57 months in prison and must pay more than $1 million in restitution to Apple. The second person was sentenced to 54 months in prison and must pay around $400,000 in fines. In addition, both men must spend three years under supervision.
A user didn’t want to be without his cell phone while on vacation and went to a repair shop to have his device repaired in a shop in Tenerife. But the repair shop employees took advantage of a customer’s mistake: fraudsters stole 5,000 euros from a person because he deactivated an important setting on his cell phone