BEIJING, CHINA: Five people have been detained in Shanghai for stealing over 1,600 iPhone devices bound for the US, police said.

The value of the stolen iPhone 4S phones was estimated at about eight million yuan (around $1.3 million) in the international market, the Shanghai Daily reported Friday.

One of the arrested was a truck driver named Wu from a logistic company that delivered iPhones from a local electronic company to the warehouse of the Pudong international airport in Shanghai.

Only a few stolen iPhones were recovered while the rest were sold to vendors across the country, police said. The theft took place in December.

Wu said the stolen 1,680 iPhone 4S devices were replaced with plastic models of the same weight and were not detected until the shipment arrived in the US.