I purchased DJI’s banned Pocket 4P digicam, and it was low-cost and simple

As a child, I at all times imagined the “black market” could be like the films: Shady distributors hawking illicit items alongside dusty streets. But if you’d like a banned DJI Osmo Pocket 4 or Pocket 4 Pro digicam within the US, you possibly can simply attain in your telephone.

They’re on Temu, AliExpress, eBay, Mercari — even Amazon and Newegg — with quick, free transport and no threat of tariffs or seizures. That’s as a result of these cameras are already contained in the United States, regardless of guidelines that ban them from getting into the nation.

This previous month, I ordered a DJI Osmo Pocket 4 Pro from Temu. It arrived simply 4 days later, shipped straight from a achievement middle in Oregon, the place a cross-border logistics firm known as Blue Ocean stuffed it right into a FedEx baggie for me.

After all of the Temu reductions, I spent solely $659.28 for the Pocket 4P Vlog Combo with the Mic Mini 2 and BodyTap distant management that my colleague Dom Preston examined for us. That’s much less than I paid for the Osmo Pocket 3 combo again in 2023.

These cameras are banned from import into the United States, The Verge can affirm. While public data present that each DJI cameras did clear the FCC upfront of the December 2025 future international drone ban, each had been licensed inside 30 days of that ban — which let the FCC use a little-known energy in December to simply take these certifications away.

The FCC repeatedly refused to supply an on-the-record assertion about the way it used that rule, 47 CFR 2.962(f), to eliminate the certification.

But once we requested DJI about it, the corporate confirmed to The Verge that its new cameras are banned.

Without FCC certification, no machine with a radio may be imported, marketed, or offered within the United States. The FCC’s ban doesn’t take away your current drones or cameras, but it surely’s supposed to dam new ones from coming in — however as soon as once more, it seems the FCC doesn’t have the manpower or focus to really floor them.

DJI claims it’s not concerned within the US gross sales we’re seeing. An organization spokesperson, responding anonymously from DJI’s press e-mail deal with and who didn’t present a reputation once we requested, shared this firm assertion:

DJI was knowledgeable of the FCC’s willpower and has absolutely complied with it. Osmo Pocket 4P and Osmo Pocket 4 weren’t launched within the United States when the merchandise had been launched globally. DJI doesn’t provide or promote these merchandise by way of its official U.S. channels and didn’t distribute these merchandise within the U.S. market. Any merchandise which may be supplied by unbiased third-party sellers will not be merchandise offered or distributed by DJI within the U.S. DJI has no involvement in these third-party gross sales.

After inspecting my very own DJI Pocket 4 Pro from Temu, I feel it’s a minimum of believable that third-party sellers are appearing on their very own. The digicam begins up with Chinese menus, for instance, and neither the digicam’s regulatory display screen nor the field show an FCC ID, so DJI in all probability didn’t simply say “screw it, ship the US version anyhow.”

But there’s been a sample of humorous conduct with DJI, whose expertise has commonly been popping up in devices repackaged by firms like Xtra, which ships near-identical cameras within the US. While neither DJI nor Xtra have confirmed or denied a relationship to The Verge, Xtra is now going through a US ban, too.

If you’re questioning why cameras are getting caught up in a drone ban, you’re not alone. I discover it onerous to consider that an almost-entirely-offline digicam poses a nationwide safety risk to the United States just like the Trump administration claims. But we do know how they’re getting caught within the ban. When the US authorities banned future international drones final December, it additionally introduced it was incorporating a ban on “communications or video surveillance equipment” from DJI and Autel Robotics.

The recreation of whack-a-drone continues elsewhere. This week, HoverAir, aka Zero Zero Robotics, introduced that it had secured FCC certification for its new Versa drone, which transforms from a DJI Pocket-like digicam right into a flying digicam by including a pair of propeller wings. Public data present it did so by claiming its digicam isn’t on the Covered List, which is true — solely DJI, Autel, Huawei, ZTE, Hytera, Hikvision, and Dahua are a part of the digicam ban.

But all new international drones are mechanically on the Covered List except they get a waiver. Does giving a digicam wings truly dodge the drone ban? You can learn my tackle that right here.