Police arrest man involved in gift-card phone scam

Investigators who brought down phone scammer Jiale Li with some of the evidence. [FCPD]

The Fairfax County Police Department’s Financial Crimes Unit helped bust a major phone scam ring.

Jiale Li, 26, of Blacksburg, Va., was arrested Sept. 1 and charged with three counts of obtaining money by false pretense and money laundering. He is being held without bond at the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center. 

The investigation was carried out by the FCPD and the FBI Organized Crime Squad with extensive assistance from the Walmart Global Investigation Team. 

Li was involved in a scheme in which scammers would call victims and pretend to be working for the Internal Revenue Service, Social Security Administration, Microsoft, or the Drug Enforcement Administration. 

Victims were told they would need to purchase a gift card to stay out of jail or to fix their accounts. Li would use the gift cards people sent to purchase more than $500,000 worth of gift cards, which he sold at a discounted rate. At the time of his arrest, Li was in possession of over $176,000 in laundered gift cards.

The FCPD urges Fairfax County residents who think they or a loved one might have been scammed to file a report with the Financial Crimes Online Reporting System.  

To avoid being scammed, the FCPD offers these tips:

• Slow down and consider whether the offer or threat seems legitimate. Scammers often make their caller ID appear real to trick the public.
• Don’t believe a caller who claims to be from a law enforcement agency telling you there is a warrant out for your arrest and demands payment to resolve the warrant. Law enforcement departments do not ask for money or payment in the form of gift cards.
• Anyone asking for payment with gift cards of any kind is likely a scammer. 
• If someone calls you offering tech support or claiming your computer has a virus, hang up.
• When in doubt, do not pay and instead find a way to contact the company directly.