A federal judge in California this week sentenced two brothers to 41 months in prison each after they admitted to an eight-year-old iPhone and iPad international conspiracy scheme during which they scammed Apple out of more than $6 million.
Natalie Neysa Alund for USA Today:
Zhiting Liao, 33, and Zhimin Liao, 36, both from San Diego, pleaded guilty on June 2 to conspiracy to traffic in counterfeit goods for trafficking fraudulently obtained iPhones and iPads, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of California.
The men and a third brother − identified in court papers as 34-year-old Zhiwei Liao − were indicted in October 2019. Online records show Zhiwei Liao also pleaded guilty in connection to the case in June. He’s slated to be sentenced on Oct. 30.
“For years, the Liao brothers and their co-conspirators trafficked thousands of counterfeit Apple products in exchange for genuine Apple products totaling millions of dollars,” FBI Special Agent in Charge Stacey Moy said in the release.
The brother’s wives, 32-year-old Dao La; 31-year-old Mengmeng Zhang; and 39-year-old Tam Nguyen, also pleaded guilty in June to charges of wire fraud and mail fraud in the case, Kelly Thornton, a spokesperson for the office said Thursday.
All three wives were sentenced to three years in prison, court documents show.
MacDailyNews Note: The Liaos admitted that, from 2011 through at least August 2019, they managed an organization to traffic in counterfeit Apple products, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of California said in a statement. The Liaos imported counterfeit iPhones and iPads from China that looked genuine and included identification numbers that matched identification numbers on real iPhones and iPads that were under warranty and had been previously sold to customers in the United States and Canada.
At the direction of the Liao brothers, co-conspirators traveled to hundreds of Apple Stores across the United States and Canada and attempted to exchange more than 10,000 counterfeit iPhones and iPads for genuine iPhones and iPads. The Liaos exported fraudulently obtained iPhones and iPads to individuals in foreign countries for profit. The estimated total infringement amount or loss suffered by Apple was approximately $6.1 million.
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Unbelievable. They will be out in a year and a half for criminal theft.
This will only encourage others to do the same. They will have made over three million a year. Not bad.
Not bad? They don’t keep a dime of their ill-gotten gains and will each spend almost three and a half years in a federal prison. That sounds pretty bad to me.
According to the article, their scheme is over eight years old. Do you suppose they kept it in an IRA all this time? How can they reimburse Apple for what they already spent? I doubt if their legitimate earning potential is sufficient to repay what is already gone. C’est la vie.
There is no probation in federal cases.
Its the libturd way.. soft on criminals
Once again Sam plays the asshole.
Sam, since only you know what is the right way to control society, what does your majesty decree is the appropriate punishment for the crime committed?
Send $1,700,00,000 in cash- To Iran, C/O The Ayatollah:
Just like “someone somewhere in Washington did sometime ago”.
I wonder if AirTags can be used as ankle monitors.
If so, they will likely be counterfeit.
Probably not. Unless you can secure it properly to be difficult to remove and also have some indicator to inform the wearer that they are ‘outside’ the boundaries set for the monitor I would think that use case is outside the current AirTag design.