Xiaomi’s new Memoji clone isn’t the first product it has shamelessly stolen from Apple. But it might just be its worst ripoff to date.

That’s not because Mimoji and Memoji sound exactly the same, or because the character designs are nearly identical. It’s because Xiaomi brazenly stole Apple’s commercials to promote it.

Official Memoji ads (not ripoff Mimoji ads) somehow found their way onto Xiaomi product pages for its Mi CC9 smartphone on more than one retail platform this week.

Weibo users in China spotted them on JD.com and Suning — two popular e-commerce websites. As you might have predicted, Xiaomi denies it was intentional.

Xiaomi used Apple ads ‘accidentally’

Xu Jieyun, the Chinese smartphone-maker’s general manager for public relations, claimed in a post on Weibo that the error was caused by staff “uploading the wrong content.”

The statement is unlikely to convince too many Apple fans that this was a genuine accident. Even if you forget Xiaomi’s copycat history, it is still incredibly hard to believe this was inadvertent.

I just can’t imagine a scenario in which Xiaomi’s own assets were mixed up with Apple’s unintentionally, and were then completely missed by Xiaomi and its partners after being published.

Xiaomi products are designed in Cupertino

Xiaomi has obviously had the ads pulled now. But this supposed mix-up, and Mimoji in general, only reinforces the company’s copycat image in the West.

Previous Xiaomi products have ripped off the iPhone, iPad, MacBook, and more. But of course, Xiaomi strenuously denies that it has ever copied Apple’s designs.