Man charged in Lexington gift card scam allegedly could have cost buyers $1 million

A federal grand jury in Lexington has charged a man in a gift card scam that could have cost unsuspecting buyers more than $1 million.

The grand jury indicted Yongjian You, 41, Thursday on charges of mail fraud and possession of counterfeit gift cards.

According to state and federal court records, Lexington police came in contact with You on July 8 at a Kroger supermarket on Bryan Station Road, where they found Amazon gift cards on the shelf that had been tampered with.

The indictment says tampering with gift cards is emerging as a new front in organized retail crime around the U.S.

The scheme typically involves several steps, beginning with stealing gift cards from retailers. People involved in gift-cards schemes target large retailers with high levels of consumer traffic and quick inventory turnover, according to the indictment.

Someone involved in the scam then tampers with the cards in a way that ultimately gives them access to the money a buyer pays a store to load on them, according to the indictment.

The scammers can do that by altering the PIN number on the card or replacing the barcode, the indictment says.

People involved in the scheme then put the compromised cards back on store shelves.

They check to see when a compromised card is activated, such as by making a balance inquiry, and then use it to buy merchandise or drain the balance remotely using the altered information on the card, according to the indictment.

When Lexington police arrested You on July 8, he was carrying 54 gift cards that had not been tampered with. There were 871 cards in his car that had been compromised and 998 that hadn’t, the indictment says.

Police found five altered cards on the shelf at the Kroger on Bryan Station, and a total of 216 altered cards at Kroger stores in the area, according to the indictment.

Security cameras showed You had been to multiple Kroger stores in Lexington and Versailles.

Authorities also tracked down two packages containing a total of 2,651 gift cards You allegedly had mailed to California on July 6 and July 8, one from Ohio and one from Lexington, presumably to be altered as part of the scheme.

The potential loss to consumers on the cards in You’s car and the ones he mailed to California was $1,047,900, according to the indictment.

You was initially charged in state court in Lexington with criminal possession of a forged instrument.

One court document listed his address as Flushing, which is in New York City.

The mail fraud charge against him has a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.