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The Department of Homeland Security has uncovered what looks like a modern theft ring operating in plain sight: during three months last summer more than 30,000 iPhones and iPads — about $35 million worth of Apple devices — were routed through a single warehouse in Amherst, New Hampshire, all bought with gift cards tied to sextortion and romance scams. This wasn’t petty theft; investigators say the cards were redeemed from computers in China and used to buy devices under fake names and addresses before shipping them overseas. Americans who were victimized by these heartless scams deserve answers and justice.
Investigators found that many of the warehouse workers were Chinese nationals and that evidence of coordination showed up in WeChat group chats where stolen gift card numbers and PINs were openly traded. The devices, officials say, were often shipped to China or the United Arab Emirates after being purchased and aggregated at that facility, a classic money-laundering pipeline that turns stolen consumer goods into clean profits. This is not some isolated con; it’s a transnational criminal enterprise exploiting America’s kindness and trust.
Worse still, the Justice Department has been tracing these schemes for months and has tied more than $100 million in fraudulently obtained gift cards to organized criminal elements in China, while other federal prosecutions show similar playbooks used to steal genuine devices through counterfeit returns and sham warranties. These criminal networks are sophisticated, patient, and unapologetic, using U.S. commerce systems as their ATM and relying on weak points in our oversight. If Washington won’t secure our economic frontiers, criminals and hostile actors will.
Big Tech and foreign apps are not blameless in this mess. The seizure warrant shows Apple cooperated with investigators, but the fact remains that WeChat communications and other platforms have frustrated lawful investigations because of poor compliance with U.S. legal process — a recurring national security headache. American companies and foreign apps that operate here must be held to American law and standards, or they should be barred from our market.
This scandal should be a wake-up call for Congress and law enforcement to act decisively: tighten controls on bulk gift card purchases and redemptions, require financial institutions and payment platforms to flag suspicious flows tied to romance and sextortion scams, and clamp down on apps and services that shield foreign criminal networks. We’ve seen federal prosecutors successfully pursue defendants in similar schemes; now those tools should be scaled up and paired with sharper bipartisan oversight.
Americans who work hard and play by the rules shouldn’t have to fund a criminal industry that lines the pockets of foreign syndicates. Homeland Security Investigations’ Project Red Hook and related efforts are the kind of aggressive law enforcement response we need more of, not less, to protect victims and reclaim the integrity of our commerce. It’s time for real accountability — for the scammers, their enablers, and the foreign actors who profit from preying on our people.
