New Delhi: The Mumbai unit of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) has seized over 3,600 handsets of the iPhone 13 lineup, as the agency busted one of the biggest Apple iPhone smuggling rackets late on Sunday night. According to the federal agency, iPhone models that included the iPhone 13 Pro Max and iPhone 13 Pro were imported and carried memory cards, as reported in the import documents. The value of the seized gadgets is around Rs 42.86 crore.
The consignments seized include 2,245 iPhone 13 Pro models, 1,401 iPhone 13 Pro Max devices, 12 Google Pixel 6 Pro models and an Apple Watch.
“After developing precise intelligence, DRI officials inspected two consignments on Friday. The consignment had arrived from Hong Kong at Air Cargo Complex (ACC), Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, Mumbai. In import documents, the goods were declared as “memory cards”. However, physical examination revealed that the consignment actually contained a total of 3,646 iPhone-13 mobile phones.
This comes at a time when the Apple iPhone 13 has been hampered due to the global chip crisis. The biggest concern for the tech and auto industries is the global shortage of semiconductor production.
Apple iPhone 13 series became officially available in India in September with prices starting at Rs 69,990. The iPhone 13 lineup includes the iPhone 13 Mini, iPhone 13, iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max.
The latest iPhone 13 series is built around Apple’s new proprietary A15 Bionic chip with two high-performance 6-core CPUs and four efficient cores along with a 16-core Neural Engine.
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