When flight attendant Ma Ailun was killed after being electrocuted while using her iPhone when it was still on the charger, a CCTV report concluded that her death was probably caused by using an unauthorised (shanzhai) charger.

On Tuesday, an investigative reporter from Guangzhou Daily went into Shenzhen’s Huaqiangbei area and discovered just how easy it is to mistakenly buy a shanzhai charger and looked into exactly how dangerous the chargers can be.

Although in 2011, Xinhua reported that China’s shanzhai industry was declining, and one third of the estimated 3,000 sellers of shanzhai products in Huaqiangbei had left the business, it is still remarkably easy to buy shanzhai products in the area.

Since Ma Ailun’s death, blogger Ken Shirriff has argued that it is completely plausible that a shanzhai charger was responsible for her death. In his blog post “Tiny, cheap, and dangerous: Inside a (fake) iPhone charger,” he states:

There’s 340 volts DC inside the charger, which is enough to kill. In a cheap charger, there can be less than a millimeter separating this voltage from the output, a fraction of the recommended safe distance. These charger sometimes short out, which could send lethal voltage through the USB cable. If the user closes the circuit by standing on a damp floor or touching a grounded metal surface, electrocution is a possibility.

However, there is another possible cause of Ma’s electrocution. Shenzhen Daily has it that the charger may have been intended for use in Japan and malfunctioned because of voltage problems. China has a 220-volt standard. Japan has a standard of 100 volts.

Buy your chargers from reputable stores.