AUSTIN — Three men have been arrested and accused of orchestrating a $14 million gift card fraud scheme.
Kristians Petrovskis, Romunds Cubrevics and Nurmunds Ulevicus are suspected of cloning gift cards from retail stores across the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Central Texas and the Gulf Coast, according to investigators.
Gift card cloning involves removing unactivated cards from store shelves, opening the packaging, copying the electronic card numbers, resealing the packages and returning the cards to the shelves. When customers later purchase the cards and load money onto them, the funds are drained before the cards can be used…