$1.7 Million Gift Card Fraud Busted Near Dallas, TX

I remember one especially lucky year when, between holidays and my birthday, I had like $300 worth of gift cards spread out between various retail stores and restaurants. I feel like $300 is a respectable about for gift cards, right? Let me tell you, that's nothing compared to the stash recently found by the Burleson Police Department.

In a recent press release, BPD announced that they had arrested two suspects charged with three separate 1st degree felonies, including "Theft of Property over $300,000" and "Fraud Use or Possession of Identifying Information 50 or more items".

How did BPD find the gift cards?

Well, the police department was already aware of what they called a "sophisticated multi-state gift card tampering ring". Then, on June 27th, license plate readers picked up a flagged vehicle thought to be involved in this group.

Lo and behold, when police approached the vehicle, they saw what they thought was over 1,000 sealed and packaged gift cards in the open, giving them all the probable cause they needed to apprehend the driver and passenger.

To make things even spicier, the investigation was able to lead law enforcement to a hotel in Carrollton, TX that was linked to the apprehended suspects. In this hotel, BPD found not two, not three, but over FOUR thousand gift cards estimated to be worth $1.72 million dollars in total...

Can you imagine what $1.7 million worth of Chick-Fil-A gift cards would get you? Probably like five sandwiches, at least.