First conviction for Apple service provider

The Shanghai Zhabei People's Court recently handed down the first criminal conviction for an Apple authorized service provider, who illegally exchanged stolen iPhones, Shanghai Morning Post reported.

Since the middle of 2013, many iPhones have been stolen in Shanghai so local police carried out an investigation, which found that many of the phones were taken "for repairs" to Aifeng Workshop, an Apple authorized service provider in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province.

Xu Xiaohua (an alias), a 27-year old engineer working at Aifeng Workshop earned 86,105 yuan ($13,873) within a year by exchanging thousands of stolen iPhones for new phones for A Ming (an alias) and A Bo (an alias).

The three were all given prison sentences, with probation, and fined.

Both Xu and A Ming were sentenced to four months prison with probation of four months and fined 2,000 yuan each. A Bo has to pay 3,000 yuan and received a six-month sentence with probation of six months.

All authorized service providers of Apple products in Shanghai have put in place an internal management system to prevent similar cases.

If a consumer loses an iPhone, he or she can report it to police with the 15-digit serial number, which will be uploaded to a database shared among authorized service providers. The database will give an automatic warning for service engineers to call the police if reported stolen phones are brought in for repairs.