A 46-year-old Laguna Hills man was sentenced Friday to two years in prison for conspiring to smuggle millions of dollars worth of counterfeit cellphone components from China.
From late 2011 to February 2015, Chan Hung Le “conspired with other individuals” to import cellphone parts and other electronic items that bore counterfeit marks for manufacturers such as Apple, Samsung, and Motorola, according to Ciaran McEvoy, a public information officer for the United States Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California.
Prosecutors in the case wrote that Le orchestrated a scheme to deceive customs agents by creating “covert shipping channels” from Hong Kong and China to different states across the country.
Le created these channels using the identities of his employees, family members, romantic partner and virtual mailbox service companies.
Once the components arrived from China, Le and his co-conspirators distributed them to the public through various online stores, McEvoy said. The operation generated “tens of millions of dollars.”
One of Le’s suppliers pleaded guilty in 2016 to conspiring to traffic in counterfeit goods and money laundering charges and admitted to selling Le more than $18.7 million worth of cell phone parts as part of his plea agreement.
Le was subsequently arrested and, in November 2020, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States, to intentionally traffic in counterfeit goods and to illegally bring merchandise into the United States, McEvoy said.
Le was sentenced Friday to 24 months in prison and ordered to pay a $250,000 fine.