The scam works something like this - Someone comes up to you with a sob story, 'I don’t have enough money for my train/plane/whatever, but I’ve got an iPhone. Look, the battery is dead but when you turn it on (switching on the power) you can see the Apple logo flash for a second. Just charge it up and you have an iPhone!'. Service centres have received such iPhones - this is how they look disassembled.
