Photo/Illutration An Apple Store in Tokyo’s Marunouchi district (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

The Metropolitan Police Department arrested four people, including the president of Teishin Co., an electronics import and export company in Tokyo’s Toshima Ward, on suspicion of fraud on Feb. 18.

This is the latest development in the case in which the quasi-gang Chinese Dragon is suspected to be fraudulently buying Apple’s MacBook laptops in bulk to resell at a markup overseas.

Teishin’s president, Zhao Zhicheng, is a 35-year-old Chinese national living in Tokyo’s Itabashi Ward.

According to metropolitan police, Zhao is thought to have conspired with a 51-year-old woman and others to illegally purchase 18 MacBooks—worth a total of 5,744,400 yen ($37,800)—at student discount prices at an Apple store in Tokyo on May 14, 2024.

Tokyo police believe that the MacBooks were then resold in China and other foreign countries through Teishin.

According to police, Zhao has denied the charge, telling investigators, “It has nothing to do with me at all.” 

The 51-year-old woman has reported ties to the Chinese Dragon and has been indicted on fraud charges.

Police are working to clarify the actual illegal resale routes.

Police also believe that Zhao and others purchased approximately 700 Apple products worth approximately 130 million yen at six stores across Tokyo and Kanagawa Prefecture between February and August in 2024 using the same method.

Apple’s terms of sale for student discounts, published on its website, include restrictions on the number of purchases allowed per year and a ban on reselling items for profit within one year.

On Jan. 7, MPD investigators raided the office of Teishin—a room in an apartment in a residential area in Toshima Ward, about 2 kilometers west of JR Ikebukuro Station.

Prior to the raid, police arrested several people on suspicion of fraud, including the 51-year-old woman, whom police said directed the purchases of Apple products.

The MPD believes that the woman and others recruited Chinese university students living in Japan through Chinese social networking sites by offering a “part-time job with a high daily wage.”

The students would then use their student ID cards to make illegal purchases.

The purchased products were then allegedly handed over to the woman, who would wait in a car parked outside the store.

The woman reportedly visited six stores in one day, collected the purchased products, and then headed back to Teishin.

The woman was also entrusted with Teishin’s corporate credit card and allegedly received a reward of more than 100,000 yen, of which 1,500 to 2,000 yen per purchased item was given to each student.

The used goods buyer then sold the products to China and other countries, police said. 

Zhao is suspected of instructing the woman on which and how many products to buy and of reselling the products to a used goods buyer in Japan for a few thousand yen markup per unit.

Apple products are popular in China and many other countries.

The MPD believes that routes from purchasing Apple products in Japan to reselling them overseas have been established, and that quasi-gang groups are involved in the scheme.

According to a private investigation firm, Teishin was founded by Zhao in Warabi, Saitama Prefecture, in 2018.

Initially, the company’s business purpose was to sell clothing and cosmetics.

However, around 2021, it began handling Apple products.

As the result, the company’s sales for the fiscal year ending in February 2022 was 16.588 billion yen, more than seven times higher than in the previous year.

(This article was written by Tabito Fukutomi and Arata Mitsui.)

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