Three men have been detained in connection with a gift card cloning fraud that Texas officials claim netted an estimated $14 million.
Kristians Petrovskis, Romunds Cubrevics, and Nurmunds Ulevicus were arrested on suspicion of cloning gift cards and possessing more than 400 of them, according to officials.
According to Lieutenant John Haecker of the Texas Financial Crimes Intelligence Center’s Dallas Field Office, the suspects have been operating seven days a week, targeting about ten store every day in Texas and Louisiana since May.
Authorities said the men stole gift cards from store shelves without paying for or activating them. They would then transport the cards to another location and carefully open the package to get the electronically stored number from the back.
“They put it either on another card or just store it in a computer system,” Haecker told me.
The suspects would then repackage the cards and return them to the stores, putting them back where they had originally discovered them.
“They are attempting to complete these tasks at a rapid pace. So occasionally they’re a little messy,” Haecker explained.
According to Haecker, buyers can safeguard themselves by looking for indicators of manipulation before activating gift cards.
“If you see any excess glue or damage to the card after opening it, do not call or go online to activate it.” Take it back to the retailer and request a refund or a different card,” he said.
Even Haecker himself recently received a copied card.
“There were indicators that I missed because I wasn’t looking for them. When I opened the gift card, there was a large blob of glue on the card that was out of position, something I should have noticed. But I just didn’t think that could happen to me,” he explained.
Texas authorities said more offenses like this are expected to be prosecuted after the state legislature passed a new law to crack down on gift card tampering, which went into effect in September.
Gift cards were unnamed in some accessible statutes, making prosecutors wary of pursuing legislation that did not specifically mention them. So the legislature really stepped up and helped us out,” Haecker explained.
In this case, the guys face a first-degree felony charge for fraudulent possession of gift cards. They are all claimed to be members of a broader crime ring based in the United States.