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New Hampshire Man Pleads Guilty to Taking Huge Bribe to Ship $2M Worth of Stolen Apple Products

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New Hampshire resident Guangwei "William" Wu recently pled guilty to transporting stolen Apple property valued at $2 million, according to the United States Attorney's Office in the District of New Hampshire.

iphone-14-purple-2.jpg

Wu owned the Hai Xing Qiao shipping company in Manchester, New Hampshire. In the fall of 2022, a Hong Kong-based company purchased a range of Apple products that Wu was meant to forward to them in Hong Kong. The order included iPads, iPhones, Apple Watches, and MacBooks.

Rather than shipping the goods, Wu accepted a bribe of more than $700,000 from a different Hong Kong company to redirect the $2 million worth of products to that company instead of the company that originally made the purchase.

Wu told the original company expecting its shipment that U.S. law enforcement officials had seized the Apple devices, and he forged a "Disclaimer of Ownership" that was supposedly issued by the United States Postal Office, complete with a fake federal agent signature.

Wu's scheme was discovered after a joint investigation by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Postal Inspection Service. Wu could receive up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000, plus he will be repaying $2 million in restitution to the company he stole from.

Article Link: New Hampshire Man Pleads Guilty to Taking Huge Bribe to Ship $2M Worth of Stolen Apple Products
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2023/06/26/stolen-apple-products-new-hampshire/
Um...activation lock is a thing. I'd imagine that apple would simply flag the serial #'s as stolen and lock them out permanently, right?
 
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MallardDuck said:
Um...activation lock is a thing. I'd imagine that apple would simply flag the serial #'s as stolen and lock them out permanently, right?
Click to expand...
No. Activation Lock only goes into effect after an Apple ID is signed in, not automatically on purchase. Apple would have referred the buyers to the police, they wouldn’t have gotten in the middle of it.
 
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I was talking with someone in Law enforcement a while back, and he said they only catch people because most criminals are "dumber than a brick".

So this guy was so dumb he did not think the legit buyer would take this "certificate" to the post office and say "WTF?", they would see the fake paperwork was fake and very quickly figure out what happened.
 
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ChrisA said:
I was talking with someone in Law enforcement a while back, and he said they only catch people because most criminals are "dumber than a brick".

So this guy was so dumb he did not think the legit buyer would take this "certificate" to the post office and say "WTF?", they would see the fake paperwork was fake and very quickly figure out what happened.
Click to expand...

Yeah, this guy probably hoped that the buyer would be seen as a fraud if they contacted the USPS. Typical that one Chinese company is trying to rip off another Chinese company. Always be very aware when doing business with a Chinese company and that is said by Chinese merchants over here.

A few years back I was looking for a LEGO present for my kids on Amazon, when I noticed a Chinese reseller that was offering the LEGO items but at 500-1000x the original price. Obviously not legit and often these resellers are covers for baby trafficking or other criminal transactions. Reported it to Amazon immediately.
 
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