Police in Beijing have shut down a factory that produced over 41,000 counterfeit iPhones, worth about $19 million USD, reports Reuters. Nine suspects have been arrested in the operation.
Police arrested nine people, including a married couple who led the operation, after a raid in May on the factory, run under the guise of a gadget maintenance shop on the northern outskirts of the Chinese capital. The details were revealed in a social media posting on Sunday by the public security bureau in Beijing.
The group was lead by a 43-year-old man, surnamed Yu and his 40-year-old wife, surnamed Xie. Both were from the manufacturing city of Shenzhen. They allegedly set up the Beijing factory with six assembly lines in January and then hired hundreds of workers to repackage second-hand smartphone components as iPhones.
In the raid which took place on May 14, police seized 1,400 handsets and a large quantity of accessories. The investigation was started following a tip from U.S. authorities who had seized some of the fake iPhones.
It's unclear how many counterfeit iPhones made it to the United States undetected.
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Comments (6)
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0
Kenn - July 29, 2015 at 1:01am
Well China is bridge between everything. One should thank China for production of affordable products. Where as counterfeit items why u all ignore , Chinese authorities are the one who raided the illegal business within its boarders, and they have the toughest punishment for these illegal businesses.
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d7deeb0 - July 27, 2015 at 8:47pm
If they run on iOS I'll take 3
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yas9in - July 27, 2015 at 7:41pm
meh... this is nothing in China, billions of dollars worth of fake merchandise are produced there each year. someone stop the carmaker copying BMW. Or all the fake clothes, watches and accessories coming out of that country.
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Wil - July 27, 2015 at 3:05pm
These are then sold remarked as Samsung. Nobody noticed a thing!
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gamerscul9870 - July 27, 2015 at 2:53pm
I wouldn't be surprised if these were used for rumors to try and take credit for leaking.
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dkdk - July 27, 2015 at 2:21pm
So you hate iPhones then, since most of the components are made in China.
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