A Chinese national, Yongjian You, was sentenced to 27 months in prison by U.S. District Judge Danny C. Reeves for his involvement in a mail fraud scheme. The fraud involved tampering with gift cards in a way that cheated customers.
In this scheme, gift card packages were stolen from stores, compromised, and then placed back on store shelves. Unsuspecting customers would purchase these tampered cards and load them with cash, which the fraudsters then used. According to You's plea agreement, he targeted Kroger stores in Lexington. You mailed these cards to co-conspirators to be compromised and then returned them to retail shelves.
On July 8, 2024, You was caught red-handed at a Lexington Kroger, swapping untampered cards for those he had tampered with. A search of his vehicle uncovered 871 tampered and 998 untampered gift cards, amounting to a consumer loss of $419,975. Additionally, two packages he recently mailed, which were intercepted, contained another 2,651 untampered cards. This represented another potential loss of $627,925, bringing the total possible loss to over $1.1 million.
Federal law mandates that You serves 85 percent of his sentence. Post-release, he will be supervised for three years by the U.S. Probation Office.
The sentencing was announced by Paul McCaffrey, Acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky, alongside Rana Saoud, Special Agent in Charge at the Department of Homeland Security's Homeland Security Investigations, and Chief Lawrence Weathers of the Lexington Police Department. The investigation was a joint operation by Homeland Security Investigations and the Lexington Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorney James T. Chapman is prosecuting on behalf of the United States.
