GILBERT, AZ (AZFamily) — A 44-year-old man from Southern California, Chuandao Yu, has been arrested in Gilbert on multiple forgery charges related to a gift card cloning scheme that has plagued the Valley for years.
According to court documents, Fry’s Food Store employees, located at Pecos and Higley roads, alerted Gilbert police just after 1 p.m. on Thursday about a suspicious man restocking gift cards without authorization.
When officers arrived, they found Yu, who handed them a box filled with gift cards. Following his arrest, police searched his vehicle and discovered another box containing over 2,000 gift cards from various retailers.
Surveillance footage reviewed by detectives captured Yu placing numerous tampered cards back onto the store shelves. This cloning technique has been a significant issue, as once someone purchases a cloned card, the funds are immediately drained.
“This is a huge problem,” Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes stated earlier this year. “They’re literally taking the cards off the shelf, cloning them, and putting them back. Once someone buys the card, it gets drained of the money.”
Yu has a prior arrest for fraud in Florida and chose not to answer any questions while in custody at the Gilbert Police Department. He now faces 65 felony counts of forgery and is being held in Maricopa County jail on a cash-only bond of $50,000.