I bought DJI’s banned camera — it was cheap and easy – The Verge

As a kid, I always imagined the “black market” would be like the movies: Shady vendors hawking illicit goods along dusty streets. But if you want a banned DJI Osmo Pocket 4 or Pocket 4 Pro camera in the US, you can just reach for your phone.

They’re on Temu, AliExpress, eBay, Mercari — even Amazon and Newegg — with fast, free shipping and no risk of tariffs or seizures. That’s because these cameras are already inside the United States, despite rules that ban them from entering the country.

This past month, I ordered a DJI Osmo Pocket 4 Pro from Temu. It arrived just four days later, shipped directly from a fulfillment center in Oregon, where a cross-border logistics company called Blue Ocean stuffed it into a FedEx baggie for me.

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Image: Newegg

After all the Temu discounts, I spent only $659.28 for the Pocket 4P Vlog Combo with the Mic Mini 2 and FrameTap remote control that my colleague Dom Preston tested for us. That’s less than I paid for the Osmo Pocket 3 combo back in 2023.

These cameras are banned from import into the United States, The Verge can confirm. While public records show that both DJI cameras did clear the FCC in advance of the December 2025 future foreign drone ban, both were certified within 30 days of that ban — which let the FCC use a little-known power in December to easily take those certifications away.

The FCC repeatedly refused to provide an on-the-record statement about how it used that rule, 47 CFR 2.962(f), to get rid of the certification.

But when we asked DJI about it, the company confirmed to The Verge that its new cameras are banned.

Without FCC certification, no device with a radio can be imported, marketed, or sold in the United States. The FCC’s ban doesn’t take away your existing drones or cameras, but it’s supposed to block new ones from coming in — but once again, it appears the FCC doesn’t have the manpower or focus to actually ground them.

DJI claims it’s not involved in the US sales we’re seeing. A company spokesperson, responding anonymously from DJI’s press email address and who did not provide a name when we asked, shared this company statement:

After inspecting my own DJI Pocket 4 Pro from Temu, I think it’s at least plausible that third-party sellers are acting on their own. The camera starts up with Chinese menus, for example, and neither the camera’s regulatory screen nor the box display an FCC ID, so DJI probably didn’t just say “screw it, ship the US version anyhow”:

But there’s been a pattern of funny behavior with DJI, whose technology has regularly been popping up in gadgets repackaged by companies like Xtra, which ships near-identical cameras in the US. While neither DJI nor Xtra have confirmed or denied a relationship to The Verge, Xtra is now facing a US ban, too.

If you’re wondering why cameras are getting caught up in a drone ban, you’re not alone. I find it hard to believe that an almost-entirely-offline camera poses a national security threat to the United States like the Trump administration claims. But we do know how they’re getting caught in the ban. When the US government banned future foreign drones last December, it also announced it was incorporating a ban on “communications or video surveillance equipment” from DJI and Autel Robotics.

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

But all new foreign drones are automatically on the Covered List unless they get a waiver. Does giving a camera wings actually dodge the drone ban? You can read my take on that here.