Apple's sales agents sentenced over fraud

Five former members of staff with an Apple-authorized sales agent in east China's Wenzhou City have been given prison terms from two to four years on fraud charges for substituting iPhone accessories with knockoffs, a local court confirmed Thursday.

This has been the first fraud case concerning counterfeiting Apple products in China.

According to a court notice from the Lucheng District People's Court in Wenzhou on Thursday, the staff with Wenzhou Baihua Yuebang Electric Co. Ltd., Apple's authorized sales agent in Wenzhou, profitted from substituting fake iPhone bands on 121 iPhones, and sending them as scrapped phones to Apple in exchange for a new batch of handsets from the company.

IPhone band refers to the key cell phone part apart from the battery and back cover.

They used the fraud to cheat 400,000 yuan (65,000 U.S. dollars) from Apple.

The court said relatives of the defendants have paid back the money. Apple has also made up for its losses by adjusting the company's service fees.