HUFFINGTON
07.28.13
THE BIG STEAL
A guy can go into a cell
phone store and steal
30 or 40 phones and
get a lot more than if
he hit a bank.
of a crime, the report says. Police
later returned the phones and all
but $4,200 in cash to Floarea per a
court judgment.
A search of court records found
no evidence of the case and both
prosecutors and Floarea’s attorney declined to comment on it. In
Michigan, some defendants have
been sentenced under statutes
that prevent their cases from being disclosed publicly, according
to a Michigan Department of Corrections spokesman.
While it remains unclear how
profitable Floarea’s business has
become, he appears to be making a
comfortable living. Early last year,
he purchased a five-bedroom house
in West Bloomfield, Mich., for $1.4
million, according to the town assessor’s office. Even Ace Wholesale’s low-level associates say they
are well-compensated. One person
who buys and sells phones for the
company told Sprint’s investigator
that he makes $3,000 per week,
court documents show.
Deaven said he recently interviewed a man who claimed to
supply phones to traffickers and
boasted about how his work supported his lavish lifestyle.
“He said, ‘I drink nothing but
top-shelf liquor and get all the
girls,’” Deaven recalled. “‘I make
more money than the dope man,
but have none of the risk.’”
‘A VERY LUCRATIVE CRIME’
The underground market transporting iPhones and other gadgets
around the world began with a
different form of theft.
For years, traffickers have hired
teams of so-called “runners” or
“credit mules” to buy discounted
phones in bulk from retailers by
agreeing to long-term service
contracts. These runners simply
stop paying the bills and sell the
devices to traffickers who export
them overseas.
In March, the California Attorney General charged two people —
Shoulin Wen, 38, and Yuting Tan,
27 — with recruiting runners from
homeless shelters to buy iPhones
and Samsung Galaxy phones. The
pair shipped the phones to Hong
Kong — a scheme that the attorney
general says netted them nearly $4