Want China Times
Date: 2015-10-10
By: Lin Yu-ping and Staff Reporter

A joint police force formed by the Taichung police and Taiwan’s Criminal

The iPhone knock-offs confiscated by police. (Photo/ Lin Yu-ping)

Investigation Bureau detained four suspects for conning iPhone carriers into replacing their damaged “iPhones,” actually fakes, with new ones, reports our sister newspaper China Times.

The knock-offs that Cheng Chiao-an and three other suspects used resembled the authentic iPhone so closely that most telecom carrier employees were not able to tell the difference. It was only after sending the phones in for maintanence with licensed Apple repair centers that the phones were identified as counterfeit, although by then the team had already made off with a new, real iPhone. The suspects were able to make off with at least 2,000 iPhones through the scam.

Cheng and his team acquired the knock-offs for US$62, upon which they would print a new International Mobile Equipment Identity number (IMEI), destroy the circuitry powering the iPhone and bring the ‘malfunctional’ phones in to telecom outlets to have them replaced.     [FULL  STORY]