Taoyuan police this week raided several locations and busted an illegal business operated by Chinese selling bogus Apple Inc iPhones.
“We busted a criminal operation that involved groups in Taiwan and China working together. They sold pirated versions of iPhones and iPhone parts,” said Lin Chih-ming (林志明), captain of the Second Police Special Corps of National Police Agency.
Police found “ more than 3,000 fake handsets and related products with an estimated value of about NT$10 million [US$324,929],” Lin said.
Photo copied by Hsu Kuo-chen, Taipei Times
Police have arrested a Chinese man surnamed Li (李), 22, and several other Chinese, along with three Taiwanese women suspected of working with the group, Lin added.
Investigators suspect that the group’s operations were based in China’s Hubei Province, as the Chinese suspects are all from Hubei, police said.
During questioning they said that they had entered Taiwan under the pretense of undergoing cosmetic surgery, which grants them a 15-day stay, police said.
Photo: Hsu Kuo-chen, Taipei Times
“We believe that this is a seasoned criminal operation, with the group’s ringleaders in Hubei, running the fake iPhone business in Taiwan. The Chinese suspects applied for visas in successive groups on the pretext of undergoing cosmetic surgery, and were replaced with another group after 15 days, when their visas ran out,” Lin said.
Police confiscated 135 iPhones and 44 Samsung handsets at a shop run by the group, along with smartphone components, which Lin said were all found to be counterfeit products made in China.
Meanwhile, police officers raiding a warehouse found a total of 3,847 assorted items, including iPhone and Samsung handsets, power adapters, earphones and other accessories, which were all found to be pirated products, Lin said.
The Chinese suspects also ran online ads to sell the fake devices and parts on auction platforms popular among Taiwanese, police said.
A accounting ledger seized by police showed that the group has made an average of about NT$2 million per month since May last year.
The group advertised the fake handsets as second-hand smartphones in good condition, demonstration kits or devices left over from special promotions, and priced them at about 10 percent off the market price, or a discount of about NT$2,000 to NT$5,000 per handset, Lin said.
Police said they have questioned all the suspects, adding that the three Taiwanese said they were hired to sell the devices and denied knowledge of the products’ origins.
The investigation is ongoing, police added.
Prosecutors said that they intend to charge the ring members with contravening the Trademark Act (商標法).
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
Taiwan is still in the process of assessing the possibility of recruiting workers from Eswatini, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, adding that its goal is to help Eswatini upgrade its vocational training centers. If there are plans to recruit workers from Eswatini, safeguarding national security, protecting public health and ensuring the employment rights of Taiwanese would be prerequisites, Department of West Asian and African Affairs Director-General Yen Chia-liang (顏嘉良) told a news conference. Key considerations would also include filling labor shortages in specific industries, and fostering bilateral professional and technical exchanges, he said. Yen was asked about the progress of labor
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
A US uncrewed surface vessel (USV) encountered multiple Chinese warships during an autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait, US defense company Seasats said in a statement on Wednesday. Seasats announced that a Lightfish USV had completed the first autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait. Over five days, the USV traversed the entire length of the Strait while constantly monitoring surface vessel traffic, the company said. The Lightfish encountered multiple Chinese warships, one of which was a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Type 056 corvette, it said. The Chinese vessels were operating “well within Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone without transmitting their identity via the
RSS