Fake iPhone 6s seized at the illegal workshop in Huizhou, Guangdong

They look the part and cost only a fraction of the price: fake iPhone 6s.

Huizhou, in central Guangdong Province, is the mecca of fake smartphones produced to export to overseas markets. A workshop nestled in a village of Boluo County with roughly 40 employees was responsible for producing about 4,200 fake iPhone 6s and 10,000 fake Samsung Galaxy S4s since April of this year, according to police.

The counterfeit phones were only discovered after police acted on a tip by local residents. In a raid on December 3, 1,700 knockoffs were seized, including semi-finished and finished models.

Three of the main suspects admitted that these phones were sold through illegal channels to foreign markets. A fake iPhone 6 produced by the factory sells for a mere RMB 700 to RMB 800 ($130), much cheaper than Apple’s starting price of RMB 5,288 ($853).

The report, however, did not specify exactly where the phones were neaded, nor the scale of the illegal production facility in Huizhou. But according to Elizabeth Woyke, author of The Smartphone: Anatomy of an Industry, an estimated 195 million knockoff smartphones and diverted phones - devices intended for sale in one market but illegally imported into another – were shipped to overseas market in 2013, reported Australian newspaper The Age.

Most of those illegal production workshops are located in Guangdong, often near Apple’s supplier Foxconn factories in Shenzhen, the author said.

Photos: Nandu