Woman jailed for stealing 25,000 iPhones ready for repair.
The high demand and value of devices with the bitten apple logo have turned them into objects of desire for criminals around the world, who never cease to amaze us with their ability to imagine scams. The most recent of these, has been carried out by a woman in Singapore, who stole thousands of iPhones, valued at $ 3 million.
Serene Ng Shu Kian was arrested for the theft of more than 25,000 iPhones.
The woman identified as Serene Ng Shu Kian, worked as a logistics manager for a telephone repair company in which he managed to appropriate more than 25,000 defective iPhones during a year and a half, conspiring with a colleague to sell them abroad.
The crimes came to light when three auditors from Apple’s security and compliance team conducted a surprise audit at Pegatron in May 2019 and they discovered that there were iPhones whose whereabouts were not taken into account.
Author of millionaire iPhone theft sentenced to 9 years in prison
Serene Ng Shu Kian, was in charge of Pegatron’s logistics department, which received and assigned defective iPhones to repair teams and delivered them to various destinations. His co-defendant, Pegatron Operations Assistant Lim Jen Hee, was responsible for updating Apple’s inventory and submitting closure requests to Apple.
According to the information published by channelnewsasia Ng and Lim agreed on a plan to sell iPhones abroad to third parties and divide the profits.
The plan consisted of save faulty iPhones by taking advantage of security gaps in the process that were not detailed in court documents. The telephones were packed in boxes of up to 60 units and kept in a metal cabinet. Then, they were picked up by a courier company, bypassing security checks, personally endorsing the delivery orders and marking them in a certain way.
Finally, the phone was delivered to an address in Malaysia and Ng entered the case closure paperwork into the system, avoiding detection. A small number of embezzled phones could not be sold as they contained counterfeit components and would be secretly returned to Pegatron’s inventory.
In total, between January 31, 2018 and May 2019, the couple stole 25,051 defective iPhones from Pegatron. The company suffered a loss of $ 6,799,790 and Ng made a profit of $ 3,115,482.
Ng used $ 71,750 of the proceeds to place a deposit for the purchase of a condominium unit in Tampines, a crime under the Corruption, Drug Trafficking and Other Serious Crimes (Confiscation of Profits) Act. He also used the earnings for his personal expenses, to pay debts and to establish a supply store call 24 hrs.
In 2019, Pegatron initiated a civil proceeding in the High Court against Ng to claim compensation for the loss caused, as they had to compensate Apple for the improperly stolen iPhones.
Further, the prosecution requested nine years in jail, saying that Ng and Lim had conspired to perpetrate a sophisticated and complex scheme to misappropriate. Finally this monday the woman has been imprisoned to serve this sentence.
