Scammers Caught Importing $6 Million Worth Of Counterfeit iPhones

The US Department of Justice has recently accused a Chinese group of scammers of an intercontinental and big-scale scheme of $6 million counterfeit Iphones and Ipads which is triggering a surfeit of problems for both Apple and innocent residents.  

This group of 14 defendants is led by three China-based brothers including Zhiwei Loop Liao, Zhimin Liao and Zhiting Liao who directly imported 10.000 fake Apple products from China. US police force made raids on several homes and two businesses in California and finally confiscated $250.000 as well as 90 counterfeit Apple smartphones.

Scammers salvaged knavish tricks in an effort of overtaking the US police force. To be more specific, they brought fake products into the US and Canada in a very bad situation named “international damaged”. Those phony parts then were taken to the Apple stores to be under warranty for genius items, the real ones were resent and sold in the Chinese market afterward, the DoJ reported in a statement. 

14 offenders have been allegedly committed fraud, money laundering, conspiracy and identity theft which is estimated to cost roughly $6,1 million in a nutshell. According to  US Attorney Robert Brewer, this prosecution not only substantially undermines US companies entering the market and purchasers, but it is also about further monetary losses which default a part of the US economy at large.

In fact, the method of exchanging fakes for authentic ones was used in the previous scams but this group of criminals took a further deception to make the police harder to detect. They took IMEI (International Mobile Equipment) as well as serial numbers from the real Apple products and copied them into the fake ones which could be sold like hotcakes in the market.