Foxconn is in news for all wrong reasons. A former senior manager at Foxconn has reportedly stolen 5,700 iPhones from the company’s manufacturing facility. The manager, who is known by the name named Tsai, has sold all the phones on the open market. In reality, he earned $1.56 million, which equates to Rs. 10.6 crore.
The company noticed the incident very late since the incident took place in 2013 – 2014 when he worked with the testing department. The modus operandi worked in such a way that he instructed eight junior employees who worked under him to secretly conceal several iPhone 5 and iPhone 5S. He, later on, sold the handsets on the open market and made a profit out of it.
Foxconn Shenzhen facility noticed the theft
Unfortunately, none of the employees or managers noticed the deficit in the product around that time. The theft news surfaced when the Foxconn factory located in Shenzhen, China reported the matter. A recently concluded internal audit confirmed the theft carried out by Tsai. He will be sentenced to a maximum of 10 years in prison if found guilty.
Prototype units were stolen to earn profit
Since Foxconn is the manufacturer of Apple iPhone and iPhone Plus, the company testing department used to get several prototypes and final finished product packages. If you visit the factory, you will be able to view several handsets lying around the factory for testing purpose. Tsai cleverly smuggled these handsets and sold them for money.
Even though the incident occurred in 2014, it took time for the company to identify the theft. This is because the phones, which arrive for testing purposes, are scrapped. Hence, there will be no evidence for the phones which are eventually scrapped.
In 2014, few employees of Foxconn grabbed 160 million Taiwan Dollars as bribes to bypass iPhones via quality checks. In November 2016, the employees were sentenced to 10 years rigorous imprisonment by Taipei district court.
We wonder why a company like Foxconn doesn’t have a strong vigilance and security system in place. How can Tsai steal several iPhones by bypassing security? It’s sure that there will be more people involved in the entire operation. We will continue to monitor and report updates. Stay tuned with PC Tablet.
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