BRAINTREE, MASS. (WHDH) - Police in Braintree say officers arrested two suspects and recovered over 4,600 gift cards believed to have been stolen as part of a gift card scam, similar to others happening across the country.
On their Facebook page, the Braintree Police Department said the arrests happened on Monday, Dec. 11, after officers were alerted to a pair of suspects who were allegedly removing gift cards from a CVS display rack on Grove Street.
Police went on to locate a vehicle believed to be involved in the incident and came across four bags that were “full of Apple, Nike, Sephora and Visa gift cards.”
“In total [the officers] recovered 4,617 cards,” Braintree PD stated.
As a result of the investigation, authorities said YanYan Liu and Na Dong of Flushing, New York, were arrested and charged with both shoplifting as well as receiving stolen property.
In their social media post, the department described the alleged incident as being similar to scams “currently happening across the United States.”
The scam, also known as “card draining,” involves individuals removing gift cards from display racks and logging the gift card numbers, bar codes, and PINs.
The scam’s perpetrators will then repackage the cards and slip them back into store shelves, leading to buyers eventually selecting the cards and loading funds onto them.
As a result, scammers are able to run the cards and PIN numbers “through a database looking to spend the funds presumably online before the gift recipient does.”
“Often times people will go to use their gift card, only to find out that most of the funds paid onto it have already been spent,” the department said.
More information on card draining and tips on how to protect yourself can be found here.
CVS in a statement said it is cooperating with police as they investigate this incident.
Liu and Dong were released following their arraignment in court in Quincy on Monday.
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