Jianhua “Jeff” Li, a 43-year-old Chinese national who lived in the US on a student visa, pled guilty today to taking part in a counterfeiting operation out of China that involved selling fake iPhones and iPads to customers in the United States. The case, headed up Homeland Security and prosecuted by the Justice Department, has been ongoing since 2015, when Li was charged and taken into custody.

For five years starting in 2009, Li — alongside conspirators Andreina Becerra, Roberto Volpe, Rosario LaMarca — helped smuggle more than 40,000 products and accessories from China into the US, including both iPhones and iPads, alongside packaging, labels, and other documents containing forged Apple logos and trademarks. The operation was large in…

Continue reading…