Chinese Worker Commits Suicide After Losing iPhone Prototype

By Lonnie Lazar (7:24 am, Jul 21 2009)

Shenzhen, China Image credit: TrekEarth

Multiple reports Tuesday indicate a 25 year-old employee of Foxconn, one of Apple’s OEM suppliers in China, killed himself last week after losing a 4th generation iPhone which he had been instructed to ship to Apple headquarters in Cupertino, CA.

Sun Danyong was a recent engineering graduate who worked in product communications for electronics manufacturing giant Foxconn in Shenzhen, a city in the booming industrial corridor between Guangzhou and Hong Kong.

On Thursday, July 9th, according to the first English-language report on the incident at Venture Beat, Sun got 16 prototype phones from the assembly line at a local Foxconn factory. At some point in the next few days, he discovered one of the phones was missing.

On Monday, July 13, he reported the missing phone to his boss. Then, that Wednesday, three Foxconn employees illegally searched his apartment. Accusations have reportedly been flying about the Chinese language Twittersphere that Sun was detained and physically abused during the investigation, although this has not been substantiated.

Shortly after 3am on Thursday July 16th, security cameras at Sun’s apartment building show him leaping to his death from a window in his apartment.

6 comments »

About the author

Lonnie Lazar is a writer-musician-web designer-attorney. He writes about Apple for Cult of Mac and Mac|Life, and about VoIP and telecommunications for Voxilla. Follow Lonnie on Twitter @LonnieLazar, join the Cult of Mac on Facebook, and find Lonnie's photos on Flickr.

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Posted in Apple, Hardware, iPhone, News |

Dr.Evil
Hmmm…
I just don’t believe that something like that could happen in a communist country.
Anonymous
What has this anything to do with communism ? China, in it’s way, is a lot more capitalist than we can be here in America.
Ken
I lived in China for 4 years and people flew past my window all the time. So this doesn’t surprise me, he had a reason to jump. How shameful to lose the latest I-Phone!
He who lose face must must perish.
mah huang
China is far more Capitalist than the US and has been for years. With all our protectionist policies, the US – under Reagan, principally – out-Socialismed China years ago.
China practices a true free market – none of this government-propping-up-failed-business-models that we do here.
We pretend our government isn’t in bed with big business and far more interested in the rich than the poor – at least they are honest about it.
That said, Apple needs to get rid of Foxconn. This is the 4th suspicious death in a year.
esien oku
is someone life woth a stupid prototype. all y’all who say serves him right imagine if it was your brother?
Fred Flinstone
Welcome to the cool world of Apple where the buyers are a bunch of brain-dead idiots sucked in by marketing hype and so perpetuate these expoloitative labour practices by Apple!