The US Attorney in San Francisco has accused two men of an elaborate fraud scheme.
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A San Francisco man was arrested and charged with defrauding Apple. He’s accused of hacking into an Apple system to place fraudulent orders. Two weeks after he was arrested, Apple sent out a security update acknowledging him for his “assistance.”
A San Francisco man was charged with defrauding Apple out of about $2.5 million worth of gift cards and products.
The man, Noah Roskin-Frazee, was acknowledged in a January 22 security update from Apple sent about two weeks after his arrest, according to a report from CourtWatch and 404 Media, which first reported on Roskin-Frazee’s unsealed indictment.
It’s unclear why Roskin-Frazee was thanked in the Apple update, and the company did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. However, the 404 Media and CourtWatch report notes that Roskin-Frazee, a security researcher, had reported issues to the tech giant in the past.
In the indictment filed in December 2023, the US Attorney in San Francisco charged Roskin-Frazee and a co-defendant with counts including fraud and intentionally damaging a protected computer.
Prosecutors allege in the indictment a complicated scheme that involved Roskin-Frazee and the co-defendant using a password reset function to break into the account of an employee who worked with Apple customers and then editing orders for things like gift cards and devices. In some cases, they edited the orders to come out to $0, or had gift cards sent to fake addresses, which they then resold, per the indictment.
They walked away with about $2.5 million in products, services, and gift cards, according to the indictment.
Though Apple isn’t named explicitly in the indictment, CourtWatch and 404 Media note that the indictment says the company is headquartered in Cupertino, California, and “developed, manufactured, licensed, supported and sold computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and services.”
Roskin-Frazee’s attorneys did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.