ICE Director Todd Lyons just revealed ICE recently busted the largest gift card fraud scheme EVER — and that stolen money was being sent DIRECTLY BACK to military units in CHINA

x.com ^ | April 16, 2026 | Nick Sortor @nicksortor

[ransomnote]

Nick Sortor
@nicksortor
·
3h
🚨 HOLY CRAP! ICE Director Todd Lyons just revealed ICE recently busted the largest gift card fraud scheme EVER — and that stolen money was being sent DIRECTLY BACK to military units in CHINA

It was being carried out by illegal Chinese men who were let in under BIDEN

All military aged, of course.

The scam is fairly simple: these Chinese fraudsters steal barcodes off gift cards from retail stores, place them back on the shelf, and when a shopper buys it, that money is IMMEDIATELY skimmed by CCP operatives who have the numbers in a database

And the American consumer is left with a worthless piece of plastic, unbeknownst to them.

ICE agents are doing HEROIC work — no matter what the Democrats say.

April 16, 2026

 

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TOPICS: Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: aliens; chicoms; china; crime; criminalaliens; crypto; dhs; giftcardfraud; ice; immigranttruth; moneylaundering; pla; qanon; trustnicksplan

[SoConPubbie]

I voted for this!

[No name given]

‘ICE agents are doing HEROIC work — no matter what the Democrats say.’

I couldn’t agree more!

[No name given]

So did I.

[Skywise]

How do they know when the card has been activated?

[lgjhn23]

Round em up, ship em out. NEVER to return.

[subterfuge]

“illegal chinese men” who don’t have names apparently. And who was arrested for this? Anyone?

[Deaf Smith]

How does one convert gift cards and ITunes cards to cash?

[Texas_Jarhead]

there are exchanges online where people buy gift cards at a discount to face value for cash or crypto

[pacificus]

The gift card scams are explained in detail on YouTube.

There are “buyers” that pay a discounted sum in crypto or venmo/zelle of like .15-.25 percent of the giftcards to the fraudsters, and the buyers go sell the cards or whatever at a discount to others. So the card dollars are sold and or transfered multiple times, and someone gets a piece of the pie at each level.

[Deaf Smith]

Then how do those buyers convert the numbers to cash?

[chajin]

When I find myself looking for big fraud
Mother Kwan Yin comes to me
Speaking words of gift cards,
Renminbi...

[subterfuge]

All democrats: SO WHAT! WE HATE TRUMP!

[pacificus]

The scammers have the card numbers in a program that alerts them when the card is activated and at what amount, and the programs can immediately redeem them, and transfer the card dollars to a wallet or other source.

YouTube anti-scammers explain this in videos, and do good job breathing the process down into understandable segments for non-tech people, so they can avoid being scammed.

[pacificus]

Kitboga
Scammer Payback
Jim Browning - Tech Support Scams

Very good anti-scammer videos

[T.B. Yoits]

Funding a foreign military with stolen money? They should be treated as spies.

[Wilderness Conservative]

The Chinese probably learned this grift from the Indians.

[SpaceBar]

Nuke Beijing.

[FatherofFive]

there are exchanges online where people buy gift cards at a discount to face value for cash or crypto

I know people who do this using rewards credit cards to fund lavish vacations. Small margins, high volume

[Mr. K]

I love the scam baiter guy who gets a scammer screaming “DONT REDEAM IT! DONT REDEAM IT” as he is watching the gift card money disappear