Three people were taken into custody and thousands of gift cards were seized after investigators dismantled a multi-county gift card tampering operation.
The investigation began in March, when a shop reported suspicious activities. A store employee noticed a man loitering around the gift card display, which was later found to contain 15 changed cards.
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Investigators were about to locate a rental vehicle linked to the suspects and trail them between Houston and Austin.
According to TDLR, the suspects entered the United States with Taiwanese passports, hired a car in Austin, and established a base of operations in Houston. Over the course of five days, they were seen visiting more than 20 retail outlets each day.
The suspects allegedly employed a calculated four-step process:
- Theft: Suspects remove large quantities of gift cards from retail displays at stores, including Walgreens, CVS, and Dollar Tree
- Compromise: Suspects then peel back security scratch protectors to record activation codes and serial numbers and then repackage the cards to appear intact
- Return: The tampered cards are returned to store shelves
- Draining Funds: Consumer purchases and activates the card at the register, prompting the suspects to drain the funds electronically, leaving the victim with a zero balance
On March 30, Houjie Lin and Yi-Hsun Wu were arrested at a Buda store for allegedly tampering with gift cards.
Hsai Lin was arrested on April 1 during the execution of a search warrant at an Austin hotel room. She allegedly processed and disassembled stolen cards.
On April 10, investigators heard about a property in Houston’s Sharpstown neighborhood that was considered to be the ring’s major base.
The trio are each charged with first-degree felony enhanced participation in organized criminal conduct, with a predicate count of fraudulent use, possession, or tampering with gift card data.
According to Texas law, these upgraded charges entail a minimum term of 15 years in jail.
Investigators were able to recover 11,563 gift cards altogether.
According to the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, the potential worth of the recovered cards indicates that authorities avoided around $5.6 million in financial losses.
When Lin and Wu were caught, a vehicle search in Buda turned up 80 tampered gift cards, two Taiwanese passports, and a glove box full of elastic bands.
Over 3,000 cards were found from an Austin hotel room.
Another 277 bundles of cards were discovered hidden in the Houston home’s closet.
