USD $1.1 million in 5 years … that’s NOTHING. I would have thought they made tens, if not hundreds of millions!
Fake Apple devices have been making the rounds for years, but it’s rare that they have much sway in the US — although it looks like one team of bootleggers had a surprising amount of success. Jianhua Li, a Chinese man living in the US on a student visa, has pleaded guilty to charges he trafficked in more than 40,000 counterfeit electronic devices from China between 2009 and 2014, including iPads and iPhones. All told, he received a whopping $1.1 million in payments — no mean feat for several years of contraband. He wasn’t alone in the plot, either, and the scheme was relatively elaborate.
Three others (Andreina Becerra, Rosario LaMarca and Roberto Volpe) working with Li have already pleaded guilty. The group tried hard to disguise their activities, according to the Justice Department — they shipped the counterfeit labels separate from the devices to avoid border control, and used carefully crafted money deposits and transfers to hide the source of the ill-gotten revenue.
Li faces sentencing on May 30th.
Source: DOJ via 9to5Mac, Engadget
