Federal investigators uncovered a jaw-dropping scene in a small New Hampshire industrial park where more than 30,000 Apple devices—worth roughly $35 million—were sitting in a single warehouse after being bought with stolen gift card money. Forbes reported the seizure and detailed how investigators traced individual iPhones and iPads back to romance and sextortion scams that bilked Americans out of their life savings.
This was not petty crime; it was an organized, transnational operation that weaponized romance scams, account hacks, and sextortion to turn stolen gift cards into high-value electronics ready for export. Homeland Security Investigations says this scheme fits into a broader pattern they are investigating under Project Red Hook, which targets Chinese-linked criminal cells exploiting U.S. retailers. The victims here are ordinary Americans who were deceived and drained while bad actors turned their pain into profit.
Investigators even found WeChat group chats on workers’ phones coordinating purchases and exchanges of fraudulently obtained gift card numbers, a chilling example of how overseas criminal networks operate with impunity behind encrypted platforms. The devices were bought under fake names and addresses and funneled to destinations including China and the UAE, a classic money-laundering pipeline that turns scams into exportable merchandise. That level of coordination should alarm every family that logs on looking for human connection or a harmless gift card purchase.
This Amherst warehouse is a case study in a national theft problem. HSI’s Project Red Hook has already linked similar cells across the country, pursued dozens of arrests, and warned that these networks may be responsible for losses measured in the hundreds of millions to more than a billion dollars. Law enforcement is right to call this a supply-chain-style criminal enterprise that moves stolen cash out of the United States through legitimate retail channels. Americans deserve a full accounting of how much of our wealth has been siphoned off this way.
Enough with the hand-wringing—this is a failure of policy and enforcement. Washington and corporate America must stop treating these crimes as inevitable collateral damage; Apple may be cooperating with investigators, but tech platforms that shelter cross-border criminal communications and the retail practices that leave gift card codes exposed must be held to account. We need swift prosecutions, mandatory retailer safeguards, and strong penalties for platforms that refuse to comply with lawful investigations.
Project Red Hook is a start, but everyone from federal prosecutors to state lawmakers must move faster to protect consumers, secure our supply chains, and make it costly for foreign criminal syndicates to prey on Americans. Strengthen penalties, ban facilitation platforms that shield criminals, and coordinate with allies to cut off the flow of stolen goods and money back to hostile networks. Patriots who work and play by the rules expect no less than a full-court press to stop this theft and to bring real consequences to those who profit from destroying lives.
