How Coles and NSW Police busted an Apple gift card tampering scam
Police found a bag containing 47 iTunes gift cards in bundles of five labelled with post-it notes when they raided a home in Sydney's western suburbs.
Coles and NSW Police have successfully dismantled an Apple gift card tampering scam, according to the ABC. The man at the centre of the operation was originally from Taiwan and had been tampering with Apple gift cards in Coles supermarkets. The supermarket's fraud team captured CCTV footage of the man removing cards from the racks and returning them, as well as other incidents where he tampered with cards around Sydney in March and April 2025.
After an internal investigation, Coles alerted the police, who later tracked the suspect, tracked his movements and searched his home, recovering 47 iTunes gift cards ranging in value from $100 to $500. The man was charged with various counts and received a 15-month suspended prison sentence and a two-year community corrections order.
The incident highlights the growing problem of gift card tampering, which affects supermarkets and customers nationwide, potentially linked to a global scam. Homeland Security has been investigating the issue in the US for years, linking it to money laundering, human trafficking, and even murder. Young Chinese nationals were arrested while taking blank cards off supermarket racks and returning them with codes stolen from the cards.
Apple has since changed its gift card packaging to make it harder to tamper with. However, stopping the crime requires cooperation from all retailers, gift card providers, and law enforcement agencies, as it's a complex issue that cannot be solved by any single entity alone.
Written by urgent.news from ABC News AU's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
