Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Chinese fraudsters managed to trick a company as big as Apple. In fact, the giant iPhone maker lost an insane amount of almost IDR 200 billion.

The method is simple, the fraudster consisting of 5 people from China took advantage of Apple's product return policy.

They applied for the return of 16,000 fake iPhone and iPad units made in China that looked like genuine products.

After returning the counterfeit goods, Apple then exchanged them for original iPhones and iPads. The original devices were then sold to gain profit.

The identities of the five fraudsters are Yang Song, Junwei Jiang, Zhengxuan Hu, Yushan Lin, and Shuyi Xing respectively.

They were charged with stealing original Apple products with a total value of US$ 12.3 million or the equivalent of Rp. 199.5 billion.

“The defendants are accused of taking advantage of Apple's customer service policies to steal more than $12.3 million worth of merchandise,” said United States Attorney Martin Estrada.

If convicted, each defendant could face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for each fraud conspiracy, as well as 2 years in prison for the identity theft charge.

Each of the fraudsters could also face up to 10 years under a charge of conspiracy to traffic in counterfeit goods.

Like previous similar cases, the fraudsters are suspected of working with colleagues in China to obtain counterfeit Apple products. The fake iPhones and iPads had identification numbers that matched genuine US products that were still under warranty.

The fake iPhone and iPad products were deliberately made to not work, so Apple inevitably had to exchange them for new items.

More than 10 different Apple Stores in various areas of southern California were victims. Including in Beverly Hills, Northridge, and Rancho Cucamonga.

The group of fraudsters visited an average of 10 different Apple Stores in Southern California in one day to return counterfeit products and exchange them for genuine iPhones and iPads.

A similar crime network using the same method was previously detected in 2019. At that time, fraudsters from China returned more than 10,000 fake iPhones made in China and defrauded Apple of around $ 6.1 million. The leaders of the fraud syndicate were ultimately sentenced to between four and five years in prison.

[Gambas:Video CNBC]

(fab/fab)