Apple Gift Card Scammers Sentenced for Role in $1.5M Fraud

Two men who engineered a massive gift card scam against Apple have been sentenced to federal prison for a $1.5 million Apple gift card scheme that included the theft of several Apple store point-of-sale systems in order to load credits onto gift cards that they then used to purchase Apple products.

Syed Ali, 29, and Jason Tout-Puissant, 27, in 2019 each pled guilty to wire fraud. Ali will serve 37 months in federal prison, and Tout-Puissant, 60 months. The men also must pay $1.26 million to Apple in restitution for their crimes.

Tout-Puissant told the court that he stole Apple PoS systems from an Apple store in Southlake, Tex., and from outside the building logged into the store's Wi-Fi network to issue gift cards with fake credits. Using Apple's Passbook application, he created QR codes for each gift card and sent screenshots to Ali, who then made purchases at Apple stores in New York using the fraudulent cards.