A man from China named Haiteng Wu was sentenced to 26 years in prison for circumventing the iPhone warranty and costing Apple $1 million.
Wu, 32, moved to McLean, Virginia, United States, in 2013 to study engineering. He got his master's degree in 2015 and later worked in the land of Uncle Sam.
However, then he began to do something else, namely to deceive Apple by circumventing the iPhone warranty. This fraudulent scheme begins with importing a fake iPhone from Hong Kong that is equipped with the IMEI and serial number corresponding to the original iPhone.
Then using a fake name, Wu and his gang sent this iPhone to Apple and claimed that the iPhone was damaged and still under warranty. The goal is for Apple to send a new iPhone to replace the fake iPhone.
Interestingly, Apple was deceived, and then sent the original iPhone to Wu and his gang. Wu then sent the iPhone from Apple to various other countries outside the United States, including Hong Kong.
Wu recruited several other people to become his accomplice, including his wife, Jiahong Cai. During this fraudulent act, Wu created multiple fake identities, used pseudonyms, and opened several commercial mailboxes to receive iPhone shipments.
In court, Wu admitted that he deceived Apple with losses of up to USD 1 million and if not caught he planned to continue his actions. However, he and his gang were arrested in December 2019 and have been in prison ever since.
Wu pleaded guilty in May 2020 to one crime, and Judge Emmet G. Sullivan sentenced him to 26 months in prison. He was also required to pay compensation of USD 987 thousand, and two of Wu's condominiums were also confiscated in the case.
While his wife, who pleaded guilty to the same crime, was also sentenced to five months in prison.
Previously there were also cases very similar to Wu's case. In 2017, a Chinese student named Quan Jiang also used the same method to deceive Apple, with almost the same amount of loss, namely USD 1 million. He was sentenced to three years and one month in prison for his actions.