Foxconn senior manager stole $1.5M worth of iPhones, faces 10-year jail sentence

A worker on Foxconn’s iPhone production line (not involved in the theft)

A former senior manager at Foxconn has been charged with stealing and selling 5,700 iPhones for a total of around $1.5M, reports AsiaOne.

The Taiwanese manager, identified by his family name Tsai, worked in the testing department and instructed eight employees at Foxconn’s factory in the southern mainland Chinese city of Shenzhen to smuggle out about thousands of iPhone5 and iPhone5s, prosecutors said. 

While you have to wonder what kind of security would allow thefts on such a massive scale to go initially undetected, the piece does contain one clue …

The phones in question are said to have been made for testing, rather than sale, and were supposed to have been scrapped once tests were complete.

The theft came to light during an internal audit, when the company reported it to the police. Tsai has been charged with breach of trust and faces a maximum 10 years in jail if found guilty.

The decline in iPhone sales hit Foxconn hard in Q2, when it reported that net profits had fallen by almost a third.

Via Business Insider. Photo: Bloomberg.