{"id":159998,"date":"2025-11-26T04:04:18","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T04:04:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/159998\/"},"modified":"2025-11-26T04:04:18","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T04:04:18","slug":"businessman-jailed-over-connection-to-international-e10m-zombie-iphone-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/159998\/","title":{"rendered":"Businessman jailed over connection to international \u20ac10m ‘zombie’ iPhone fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Dublin-based Chinese businessman has been jailed for seven years and nine months over a money laundering operation connected to an international \u20ac10 million \u201czombie\u201d iPhone fraud.<\/p>\n

Chengwen Guo (43), who was the \u201cIrish representative of a transnational crime organisation,\u201d pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to theft and money laundering offences on dates between 2021 and 2022.<\/p>\n

Guo of Ivy Exchange, Parnell Street, Dublin owned a number of mobile phone shops called Murray Mobile, which has eight stores in locations such as Blackrock, Dundrum, Sutton Cross, Ranelagh and Newbridge. Guo has one previous conviction for having a false passport at Gatwick Airport in the UK, for which he received a custodial sentence of 13 months, the court was told.<\/p>\n

The court heard that three sums of money seized in January 2022 included \u20ac6,515 found in an Audi Q7 car registered to Guo; \u20ac143,245 at his home address; and \u20ac20,700 at Murray Mobiles on Main Street in Dundrum, Dublin 14.<\/p>\n

Three Rolex watches were also found when garda\u00ed searched his apartment in Dublin. His Audi has yet to be seized, the court heard.<\/p>\n

Judge Martin Nolan described Guo as \u201ca very energetic man\u201d who had engaged in \u201cvery substantial criminal misbehaviour.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis man deserves a severe custodial sentence,\u201d said Judge Nolan. The judge said it was \u201cwhite collar deviance\u201d. The judge said \u201cthere was a gap there,\u201d and \u201cthe situation was found out\u201d.<\/p>\n

The court was told the fake or \u201czombie\u201d phones from China were exchanged under warranty for genuine iPhones, which were then sent to countries outside of the EU for resale. The court heard that 10,158 phones provided to Guo were last active mostly outside Ireland. The total retail value of the Apple products was \u20ac10, 262,617.<\/p>\n

Detective Sergeant Robert Madden of the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau told the court that representatives from Apple Corporation were in court for the hearing.<\/p>\n

The scheme operated on the basis of the Apple warranty on its phones. The fraud involved sending in fake iPhones for repair and then claiming a replacement under Apple\u2019s one-year warranty scheme. These fake phone components would come from China and would be assigned the EMEI number of a genuine iPhone when sent for repair. The replacement genuine iPhones would then be sent to Hong Kong for resale to countries outside the EU.<\/p>\n

The phones in this case would be sent to a repair company in south Dublin then they would be assigned an EMEI number of a genuine iPhone. Fonfix would deem the phone irreparable, and the phone would be replaced by Apple for a new one.<\/p>\n

The court heard Guo also sold counterfeit Apple products such as power chargers, charging cables and phone cases in his shops.<\/p>\n

In July 2021, counterfeit Apple goods, including 15 damaged iPhones and sim trays were found after a package was sent to Ireland addressed to \u201cJohnny Cheng\u201d, which the court heard was a name he used in Ireland for its simplicity rather than his Chinese name, at Murray Mobile in Main Street, Dundrum.<\/p>\n

\u201cTest purchases\u201d of counterfeit Apple goods, including power adaptors, were carried out at Murray Mobile stores in Frascati Centre in Blackrock and Newbridge. These had been manufactured in Asia and were purporting to be Apple, the court heard.<\/p>\n

Garda\u00ed commenced an investigation and searches of all eight Murray Mobile shops took place on January 10th, 2022.<\/p>\n

A significant quantity of products \u2013 the large majority being counterfeit – including power adaptors, wireless chargers, AirPods and phone cases were found. The number ran to the thousands and were worth in the region of \u20ac270,000 retail value if real. These were cheaper to buy in Asia, and Guo was not authorised to sell Apple products, Det Sgt Madden told the court.<\/p>\n

Last month, his co-accused, who was an employee of Fonfix, a tech repair business in Sandyford, south Dublin, was jailed in the same court.<\/p>\n

Lukasz Lupa (45) of Kukukcza, Wagrowiec, Poland was given a four-and-a-half-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to two counts of facilitating a criminal organisation on dates between June 5th, 2019 and September 3rd, 2021 under section 72 of the Criminal Justice Act 2006.<\/p>\n

Lupa had claimed he did not know what he was doing was illegal and received little financial benefit for his part in the warranty fraud.<\/p>\n

In sentencing last month, Judge Nolan noted that Lupa had to verify that there were defects in the phones. Apple were prepared to give replacement phones and \u201cthere was an opportunity to abuse this scheme\u201d. Thousands of phones replaced by Apple in the region of 8,000 to 10,000, the judge noted. \u201cApple lost considerably and others gained considerably,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The court heard Lupa alerted his boss that two of the phones had the same serial number. Another text said \u201cwe cannot send in two phones with the same EMEI.\u201d<\/p>\n

The judge said Lupa spotted the difficulty in the fraudulent scheme and nothing was done. \u201cThis man acquiesced and this scheme went on for a considerable period of time\u201d, the judge said.<\/p>\n

Lupa received five bottles of wine, gift cards and other gifts for his part in the scheme but never received any money, the court was told.<\/p>\n

Guo was assigned genuine EMEI numbers and then passed them on to Fonfix to get genuine devices under the Apple warranty scheme.<\/p>\n

The court heard 9,744 repair events were created for Murray Mobile and were replaced with new phones from Apple.<\/p>\n

The phones bearing those EMEI numbers that were also assigned to the zombie phones were showing recent download activity by their owners as they were legitimate. Of the 10,158 phones provided to Guo most of the phones were last active mostly outside Ireland. Most of the replacement phones were sold in Hong Kong but some were sold in the Russian market, the court heard.<\/p>\n

Det Sgt Madden said Apple realised that the number of units Guo was sending in was unusually high.<\/p>\n

He told Eoin Lawlor SC, prosecuting, that the phones would not power on and a diagnostic could not be performed on them. The phones were submitted without proof of purchase in name of a company which runs a legitimate business and was not at fault, the court heard. Guo received brand new phones and was getting \u20ac30 to \u20ac40 per unit.<\/p>\n

The court heard previously that 60 per cent of the phones had component parts and 55 per cent had been heavily modified.<\/p>\n

Of those, 288 were sent for examination and it was determined they were counterfeit. An onsite audit by Apple in 2021 took place and garda\u00ed then determined of the 10, 677 devices being processed by Fonfix, only 133 had been originally purchased in Ireland, and 9,761 had serial numbers which had shown downloads were continuing on the app store.<\/p>\n

These EMEI numbers were related to real iPhones and the zombie phones were not genuine iPhones because they would not be able to download apps.<\/p>\n

All of the \u201czombie phones\u201d had the same fault in that they did not power on and therefore could not go through diagnostics. Some of the phones were sent to the Czech Republic for screening and it was determined they were not Apple products.<\/p>\n

Guo was arrested at his home on September 11th, 2024 and interviewed on nine occasions, where he accepted he was the owner of Murray Mobile. He said the cash taken from his shop was parents\u2019 money. Guo said the money found in his home was his kids\u2019 money and the cash in the Audi was belonging to his business.<\/p>\n

Det Sgt Madden agreed with Diana Stuart SC, defending, that Guo\u2019s co-accused Lupa left jurisdiction, but the garda said there was no extradition and he had come back to be interviewed.<\/p>\n

He also agreed Guo fully co-operated with them and in May 2022 handed over the PIN to his phone to garda\u00ed.<\/p>\n

His apartment in Parnell Street was the family home and was also searched. Guo\u2019s family were there and fully co-operated with garda\u00ed and all of them handed over their passports, phones and PIN numbers. He further agreed Guo was in custody since September 11th, 2024.<\/p>\n

Guo met his wife in Ireland 20 years ago. The court heard Fonua, an associated company of Fonfix, made a settlement with Apple Corporation for \u20ac2 million.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis man profited somewhat from his enterprise,\u201d Ms Stuart put it to the garda. Det Sgt Madden replied that Guo was a \u201csenior player\u201d in the Irish operation.<\/p>\n

Ms Stuart told the court in mitigation that the Guo has four children. One is in boarding school in the UK and one is in boarding school in Ireland. He also has a child in university in Edinburgh. His wife\u2019s day-to-day living expenses are \u20ac1,000 a week, Ms Stuart told the court. \u201cA letter from her sets out her difficulty,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Judge Nolan said the appropriate global sentence was one of seven years and nine months.<\/p>\n

The judge said Guo had lapsed into criminality and \u201cused his stores to sell Apple products but they weren\u2019t Apple products\u201d. Suspicions arose and further searches saw \u20ac164,000 found in criminal proceeds as well as Rolex watches.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Man<\/p>\n

Ireland<\/p>\n

Man accused of money laundering linked to ‘zombie’ iPhone fraud appeals bail refusal<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Further investigations showed Guo was \u201cinvolved in a criminal scheme to defraud Apple\u201d, the judge said. The judge noted 10,000 phones were given out in the warranty scheme with a value of \u20ac10 million.<\/p>\n

Judge Nolan noted his co-accused Lupa was a company supervisor and had received a four-and-a-half year sentence. Judge Nolan said Guo \u201cbrought the funds\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny scheme that cannot be defrauded is a scheme you cannot use,\u201d said Judge Nolan. \u201cThere is always going to be weaknesses in a scheme,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The prosecution made applications for forfeiture of the cash sums involved and the Audi, which the court heard is in the possession of Guo\u2019s wife, is also to be seized.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Dublin-based Chinese businessman has been jailed for seven years and nine months over a money laundering operation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159999,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-159998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}