HOUSTON – Three people are facing first-degree felony charges in Hays County, Texas, after allegedly stealing thousands of gift cards in an attempt to tamper with them and wipe out any balances, according to law enforcement officials.
The allegations involve thousands of gift cards from stores in and around the Houston area.
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The group allegedly operated in Harris County and surrounding areas for about a week in late March before moving operations to the Austin area, where they were arrested in a multi-agency operation.
Investigators said they targeted gift cards on shelves at local Walgreens, CVS, and Dollar Tree stores.
All three suspects are foreign nationals, according to the Texas Financial Crimes Intelligence Center (FCIC), including two who investigators believe are a brother and sister who flew into the U.S. using passports from Taiwan before beginning the criminal operation.
The third allegedly sought asylum at the California border in December 2024.
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Inside the investigation
Law enforcement first became aware of the group due to suspicious activity at a gift card kiosk at a Walgreens in Spring, according to investigators.
One suspect spent about 15 minutes lingering around the cards before employees discovered 15 altered gift cards.
The group was then tracked by law enforcement to stores around the Houston area, hitting an estimated 20 locations per day and stealing gift cards from shelves each time.
Law enforcement learned the suspects rented a car in Austin before driving to Houston, where they are believed to have rented rooms at a home in southwest Houston. It served as a home base for the operation, according to Lt. Scott Hamilton.
Investigators eventually executed a search warrant at the home, recovering reusable bags filled with bundles of thousands of gift cards from different retailers, stuffed inside a closet.
As Hamilton’s team built the case locally, the group moved to the Austin area, where they began operating out of a hotel room and targeting dozens of stores around Austin.
Austin-area arrests
While working from sunup to sundown, as Hamilton described it, two of the suspects were arrested in Buda, Texas. Photos shared with KPRC 2 News show one suspect, Houjie Lin, with a pocket full of gift cards.
Yi-Hsun Wu was also arrested at a Walgreens, and investigators found dozens of tampered gift cards along with a glove box full of rubber bands during a search of their vehicle.
Investigators also executed a search warrant at the Austin hotel room, where they recovered thousands more gift cards and found Hsai Lin “actively processing and dismantling gift cards.”
All three have now been charged in Hays County with first-degree engaging in organized crime. The Lins are wanted, Hamilton said, while Wu has been taken into immigration custody.
The bigger impact
The gift cards had a total value of nearly $5.7 million, and investigators believe the trio was working to capture numerical information from each card to build their own database.
The cards would then be returned to store shelves, Hamilton said, and when purchased by an unsuspecting customer, the suspects would receive notice that a balance had been activated.
They would then be able to access and drain those funds, sometimes before a customer even returned home after purchasing the gift card.
Hamilton called gift card tampering an “epidemic” and said customers should pay close attention to any packaging that appears to be altered.