US man who ran massive counterfeit iPhone scheme with family sentenced to prison

The defendants fanned out across North America to avoid detection, hitting Apple stores in 40 states and Canada. Liao’s plea agreement states he and his brothers directed their co-defendants ‘to exchange more than 10,000 counterfeit iPhones for genuine iPhones’ and Liao ‘personally received at least US$6.1mil in proceeds’. — AFP

A San Diego man who led a criminal ring that defrauded Apple out of at least US$6.1mil (RM28.78mil) by swapping fake iPhones and iPads from China for real ones in the US and Canada was sentenced Monday to four years and three months in federal prison.

Zhiwei “Allen” Loop Liao, 36, admitted that he was the leader of an aggressive and prolific exchange fraud scheme that also included his two brothers, each of their wives and more than a half-dozen other co-conspirators in the US and China.