2 Chinese men living in the U.S. sentenced for defrauding Apple with fake iPhones

Oct. 3 (UPI) -- The Justice Department said Thursday two Chinese men who tried to defraud Apple Inc. have been sentenced for trying to defraud the technology giant out of millions of dollars worth of iPhones.

Haotian Sun, 34, got 57 months in prison and was ordered to pay $1,072,200 in restitution to Apple and a forfeiture of $53,610.

Pengfei Xue, 34, got 54 months in prison and was ordered to pay $397,800 in restitution to Apple and a forfeiture of $19,890.

Sun resided in Baltimore and Xue lived in Germantown, Md.

The DOJ said in a statement, "Sun and Xue, along with their co-conspirators, submitted counterfeit iPhones to Apple for repair to induce Apple to replace the counterfeit phones with genuine iPhones."

Sun and Xue got fake iPhones from Hong Kong and the phones, with spoofed serial or IMEI numbers, were sent to Apple stores and authorized Apple service providers.

According to court documents, conspirators in the scam "submitted more than 6,000 inauthentic phones to Apple during the conspiracy, causing a loss of more than $2.5 million."

After a five-day trial, Sun and Xue were convicted of conspiracy to commit mail fraud.

In addition, Sun was convicted of one count of mail fraud and Xue was convicted of six counts of mail fraud.