Attorney Roger B. Handberg of the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Middle District of Florida has announced that a 32-year-old Chinese man has pleaded guilty to possession of 15 or more unauthorized access devices in a sophisticated wide-scale gift card scheme that would have netted the Chinese national nearly two million dollars — now facing a maximum penalty of 10 years in federal prison.
According to the plea agreement, Donghui Liao admitted to stealing gift cards from a large-scale retail store, obtaining the account information from the back of gift cards before resealing them in their original packaging and placing them back onto the shelves of a different store location for customers to purchase. Once a customer purchased the gift card and loaded money onto it, Liao was then able to remotely access the card’s funds without the customer’s knowledge.
On October 17, 2023, an officer with the Ocala Police Department happend to observe Liao retrieving numerous gift cards from a black shoulder bag he was wearing and placing those gift cards onto the retailer’s gift card display. Liao was also seen taking gift cards off the shelves and concealing them inside the black bag before leaving the store.