Shorewood Man Arrested In International Gift Card Fraud

SHOREWOOD, WI — A Shorewood man has been arrested after reportedly serving as a middleman in an international fraud operation involving hundreds of thousands of dollars in stolen gift cards.

Fan Xia, a 29-year-old post-graduate researcher earning $37,000 a year at UW-Milwaukee has been charged with one count of felony theft and one count of receiving stolen property.

According to his criminal complaint, Xia admitted that he gets gift card information from people in India, he then purchases other gift cards using that information, and then sells the purchased gift card numbers and pin/access code to someone in China. He would provide it to the person in China by texting a photograph of the back of the iTunes/Goggle Play card after scratching off the security strip revealing the pin/access code.

During a search of his residence, police recovered over 200 gift cards (including iTunes, google play) valued at approximately $10,000. The scratch off security strip on all off these 200 cards had been scratched off, suggesting the card number and the pin/access code for each card had been forwarded on, consistent with the defendant’s statement that he would provide this information soon after purchasing the cards, his criminal complaint stated.

According to police, a search of Xia's phone revealed from Sep. 2016 to July 2017, over 400 pictures containing images of approximately 6,100 iTunes/Google Play gift cards for total value of $305,000 of cards he had purchased using card numbers obtained from the people in India.

How He Was Caught

On Feb. 14, a detective assigned to the Milwaukee Secret Service Financial Crimes Task Force received a police report from Berwin, Illinois about an IRS phone scam.

According to police, a man was told he owed nearly $5,000 in back taxes to the IRS and that he could provide Target gift cards to settle the bill. He gave the Target gift card numbers to the operator over the phone. It was after the call he realized he was a victim of a scam and contacted police.

Later that month, video surveillance from the Wauwatosa Target showed Xia using the same Target gift card reported in the Berwin case. Xia was also seen on surveillance video buying things using the same gift card at Target stores in Menomonee Falls and Grafton.

Pursuant to search warrant, a GPS unit was affixed to Xia's Mercedes from June 30 to July 7 when he was arrested after driving the Mercedes to the Target in West Milwaukee. During those 8 days, Xia visited Target stores, Best Buy Stores, Walmart Stores 23 times.

Victims Across The U.S.

According to his criminal complaints, other victims, residing in Maryland Heights MO ($17,000), Cambridge, MA ($17,000) Palm Beach County, Florida ($800), Bronx, New York ($11,900) have fallen for the same IRS scheme, and Xia was observed on surveillance videos at Target stores in Southeast Wisconsin (including Milwaukee County) using the card numbers to purchase iTunes/Google Play gift cards on the same day that each victim provided the card number.

Xia is out on a $30,000 cash bond.

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