A Chinese citizen was sentenced to a maximum of three years in prison and ordered to pay a $25,000 fine for his involvement in an Apple gift card fraud case at a Walmart in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was also required to forfeit over $16,000 in illicit gains and criminal tools.
According to Michelle Henry, the Attorney General of Pennsylvania, 20-year-old Zhixiang Chen pleaded guilty last week in Lawrence County Court and admitted to participating in organized retail crime activities.
Prosecutors alleged that Chen and his accomplices stole gift cards, modified them, and then put them back on the shelves. After the cards were tampered with, unsuspecting consumers who bought and loaded them had their funds stolen, allowing the criminal group to profit significantly from innocent victims. Henry emphasized that such crimes not only harm the economic interests of retailers but also directly infringe upon the rights of consumers.
Surveillance footage showed that Chen had stolen Apple gift cards from at least six Walmart stores, altered the card data to divert funds for personal use, and then resold the cards back on the shelves. When purchased by unsuspecting consumers, the cards contained significantly less money than advertised. It is believed that this fraudulent activity had illegally netted the criminal group hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits.
These gift card fraud cases are not isolated incidents. On the same day, federal prosecutors in New Hampshire announced that three Chinese citizens, identified as Wu Naxin, Jiang Mengying, and Chen Mingdong, confessed to participating in another gift card fraud scheme in federal court in the state, involving millions of dollars.
According to prosecutors, these criminals acquired gift cards through various fraudulent means, including hacking into U.S. company systems or carrying out romance scams and elder fraud schemes targeting American citizens.
The obtained gift card data was then transmitted through Chinese information platforms to several Chinese citizen groups (criminal syndicates) operating in the United States. These groups used the gift cards to purchase high-value electronic products, primarily Apple products, and stored the goods in warehouses before shipping them to markets in China, Hong Kong, or Southeast Asia for profit.
Prosecutors stated that these criminal syndicates primarily operated in states like New Hampshire that do not have sales tax to maximize profits. During the investigation, nearly 4,000 gift cards with a total value close to $1 million were found in the suspect’s vehicle, along with a large amount of cash and equipment used to alter cards.
In the case, Wu was responsible for $1.4 million in fraudulent gift cards, Jiang for $3 million, and Chen for $400,000 worth of cards. These cases collectively expose the widespread involvement of organized Chinese crime in gift card fraud and the criminal patterns targeting the U.S. retail industry and consumers.