LOS ANGELES – Two Chinese nationals – one of them an illegal alien – living in the Inland Empire were sentenced to federal prison today for leading a large-scale, trans-Pacific scheme to defraud Apple Inc. through the fraudulent “returns” of thousands of counterfeit iPhones, iPads, and other Apple goods that caused the Cupertino-based technology company at least $16.2 million in losses.
Wenhui Huang, 41, of Chino Hills, the group’s ringleader and an illegal immigrant, was sentenced to 78 months in federal prison by United States District Judge André Birotte, Jr., who also ordered him to pay $16,239,254 in restitution.
Huang pleaded guilty in May 2025 to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and mail fraud, one count of conspiracy to traffic in counterfeit goods, and one count of engaging in a monetary transaction in property derived from specified unlawful activity.
Judge Birotte today also sentenced Yang Song, 39, of Corona, the group’s second-in-command, to 57 months in federal prison, and ordered him to pay $16,997,415 in restitution.
Song pleaded guilty in June 2025 to 21 counts of conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud, wire fraud, mail fraud, and conspiracy to traffic in counterfeit goods, in addition to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering for a separate scheme involving the funneling of proceeds of various frauds to overseas.
Huang and Song are the final defendants to be sentenced in this case.
According to court documents, from at least December 2015 to March 2024, Huang, Song, and others coordinated with co-conspirators in China to smuggle counterfeit Apple iPhones, iPads, and other devices to them and other U.S.-based co-conspirators.
The counterfeit Apple devices smuggled to Huang, Song, and others in the U.S. were designed to look like genuine Apple devices and included identification numbers matching the numbers on real Apple products that had been sold in North America, were owned by real people, and were under warranty through Apple’s manufacturer warranty and AppleCare+, Apple’s extended warranty program.
The real identification numbers and serial numbers on the counterfeit devices that defendants returned were designed to essentially impersonate the real Apple devices owned by real people throughout the United States – and therefore deceived Apple into replacing the counterfeit devices with real devices under Apple’s warranty programs.
Once the counterfeit devices were smuggled into the U.S., the defendants fraudulently returned the counterfeit iPhones, iPads, and other devices to Apple as if they were genuine and had been legitimately purchased, were eligible for Apple’s warranty programs, and as if they were the lawful possessor of the Apple devices.
The defendants knowingly and fraudulently represented that the counterfeit Apple devices they returned were genuine but were broken or non-operational and were covered by the company’s warranty programs.
Some of the false reasons given to Apple store employees were because the devices purportedly would not power on, were physically damaged, or had other defects. But the defendants knew that the Apple devices they were returning were counterfeit and fraudulently used the identification numbers and serial numbers of real people’s Apple devices to victimize both Apple and the device owners.
As part of the scheme, the defendants visited multiple Apple stores throughout Southern California, including stores in Beverly Hills, Sherman Oaks, Pasadena, Irvine, Northridge, Manhattan Beach, Brea, Rancho Cucamonga, Cerritos and at shopping malls such as The Grove in Los Angeles, South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, Fashion Island in Newport Beach, and The Americana at Brand in Glendale. In many cases, they visited as many as 10 different Apple stores where they would allegedly return counterfeit devices.
Once at the Apple stores, Apple employees either replaced or repaired the counterfeit Apple device with a genuine Apple device during the same visit or, on other occasions, took the defendants’ counterfeit devices and shipped them to a repair center.
Apple then shipped to the defendants a genuine replacement Apple device or a repaired device to either an Apple store, where the defendants returned to pick up the new device, or at the dozens of mailboxes at UPS Stores that the defendants rented across Southern California to receive counterfeit devices from China and receive genuine replacement devices from Apple.
After successfully returning the counterfeit Apple devices for genuine ones, the defendants shipped the genuine devices to co-conspirators both in the United States and abroad, primarily in China, where the genuine Apple devices were resold at a substantial profit.
Federal prosecutors secured six convictions in this case, including for Yushan Lin, 32, and Shuyi Xing, 36, both of Corona, whom Judge Birotte on Wednesday sentenced to 18 months of home detention and 38 months in federal prison, respectively, and ordered to pay $16,239,254 and $17,343,549 in restitution, respectively. Lin and Xing fraudulently returned and attempted to return at least 1,584 counterfeit devices to Apple, causing at least $1,116,544 in actual losses to the company in their part of the overall conspiracy.
Two other defendants, Zhengxuan Hu, 28, of Alhambra, an illegal alien, and Junwei Jiang, 39, of East Los Angeles, were previously sentenced to prison terms of 24 months and 36 months, respectively, for their role in the scheme and were ordered to pay $16,239,254 in restitution.
Homeland Security Investigations and IRS Criminal Investigation investigated this matter. The United States Postal Inspection Service and the Los Angeles Police Department provided substantial assistance.
Assistant United States Attorney Andrew M. Roach of the Major Frauds Section prosecuted this case.
Contact
Ciaran McEvoy
Public Information Officer
ciaran.mcevoy@usdoj.gov
(213) 894-4465
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