Phone. Photo: VCG

A man in Fuzhou, East China's Fujian Province, found on Tuesday that his cell phone had been used for private purposes by a local policeman during the four years he was in jail. 

The man, surnamed Lin, was arrested in 2014 and sentenced to four years in prison, and had his iPhone confiscated by local police. However, when he requested the return of his cell phone upon release in 2018, Lin was rejected. 

When Lin logged in to his old iCloud account recently with a newly purchased mobile phone, he was surprised to find over 800 synchronized photos related to the police officer who had previously rejected his request, media reported Wednesday.

"As it turns out, the police officer had been catering to his own needs using my phone," Lin said.

But the police officer denied having used Lin's phone for private purposes, insisting that he was puzzled about it and had been wronged. 

Local authorities announced Tuesday that the person involved has been punished.