China’s Huawei Technologies, the world’s No. 2 smartphone maker, covertly planned to sell its smartphones in the United States disguised as non-Huawei devices, according to U.S. officials.
U.S. intelligence agencies learned of the plans last month and alerted senior policymakers.
According to the officials, the Shenzhen, China-based company planned to ship a large number of its smartphones to Mexico where the smartphones would be re-labeled and shipped into the United States.
As non-Huawei devices, there would be no prohibition on selling them in the United States.
The phones, however, could be identified as Huawei devices by examining their electronic components that can be traced to the Chinese telecom.
No other details of the secret smartphone operation could be learned.
Huawei’s U.S. affiliate did not return emails seeking comment.
The scheme to disguise Huawei smartphones appears to be the latest effort by the company to penetrate the U.S. market.
Huawei in 2008 was forced to give up a bid to buy the U.S. telecommunications company 3Com over national security concerns. Two years later, Huawei was pressured to abandon a bid to buy the U.S. server technology company 3Leaf.
In May, President Trump slapped sanctions on Huawei that are designed to prevent use of the company’s products in the United States and to block American tech companies from selling computer chips to Huawei.
Using a presidential order, Trump banned U.S. telecommunications companies from purchasing equipment supplied by foreign adversaries.
full story at https://freebeacon.com/national-security/huawei-covertly-to-sell-smartphones-in-u-s/