Brothers defrauded Apple for 8 years: Here's how he caused millions in losses!

Three brothers living in San Diego, on the border of the US and Mexico, tried to steal around 10 thousand Apple products with an interesting method. The case, which was understood to be an 8-year process, ended in prison, as you can imagine. Today, the lawsuit process that has been going on for years is officially over. Let's take a look at what happened from the beginning to the end of this process.

Brothers named Zhimin, Zhiting and Zhiwei Liao came up with an unthinkable plan. As part of this plan, the brothers started importing fake iPhones and iPads from China. For 8 years, around 10 thousand products were imported. The brothers went to Apple stores in the US and Canada with the incoming goods, swapped the real and counterfeit products and sold the real products outside. According to the investigations, the 3 brothers earned 6.1 million dollars from these thefts that they continued for years...

According to court documents, Zhimin Liao visited 105 Apple stores in 22 US states and stole 720 iPhones and iPads. Zhiting Liao went to more than 200 Apple stores in the US and Canada. The number of iPhones and iPads stolen was 718. And these figures were the only ones known. Thousands of fake Apple products like these were replaced with the real thing.

After pleading guilty, Zhimin and Zhiting Liao made a plea deal with the court. As part of this deal, both were sentenced to 41 months in prison. In addition, 5 residences in San Diego, around 250 thousand dollars in cash and more than 200 original iPhones obtained from the crime were also included in the deal and the US government confiscated them.

Zhiwei Liao's sentence has not yet been announced, while the brothers' wives were sentenced to three years of probation each. There is no information about the sentences given to the other partners of the thieves.