Project Red Hook: Chinese Gift Card Fraud at Scale

Project Red Hook is a Homeland Security Investigations operation examining how Chinese Organized Crime is committing wholesale Gift Card Fraud by using Chinese illegal immigrants to steal gift cards, reveal their PIN, reseal the cards, and return them to store racks.  When the card is later purchased and activated, operators are standing by to quickly drain the card before the customer can use it. How many cards are we talking about?  More than $1 Billion worth! 

Here are a few cases of interest to me - especially the first one! 

Birmingham, Alabama 

https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndal/pr/chinese-nationals-charged-illegally-possessing-counterfeit-and-unauthorized-gift-cards

25JUN2025 - the Hoover Alabama Police Department put out a BOLO for two Asian males in a gray Lexus SUV with California tag DE53Y62 who were switching gift cards in racks at local CVS stores.  Jiadong Cao, 36, and Xuejun Zheng, 48, were stopped and arrested the following day in Pelham, Alabama and found to possess more than 5,000 gift cards.  Portions of the gift card numbers had been destroyed on the cards, which would allow the cards to be activated at the register, but not used by the customer who purchased them. 300 altered cards for Home Depot, Amazon, Sephora, Macy's and Nike were found in their car.  Home Depot reviewed their cards and confirmed they had not been sold.

The Federal criminal complaint was written up by a former student of mine!  USSS Special Agent Scott Easterwood! Jiadong Cao is a Chinese citizen who entered the US in September 2024 and is illegally in the country now.  Xuejun Zheng also entered the US in September and has filed for asylum in the US. In the CVS store that started this investigation, they had added altered gift cards to the rack, including six Nike cards, ten Macy's cards, and nine Best Buy cards. 

Louisville, Kentucky

https://www.wlky.com/article/men-arrested-gift-card-scam-louisville-millions-lost/62673181

19OCT2024 - Kroger security personnel observed Chaoming Lin placing gift cards back on a rack at a store on North Hubbards Lane. He was stopped shortly thereafter by St. Matthews Police, who found him in the car with Zhiqiang Huang.  Around 5,000 gift cards were found in a search of the vehicle, with at least 2,000 appearing to have been altered. That same day, Kroger loss prevention reported another instance and that an Asian man was seen leaving in a black Dodge Charger.  That car was also stopped with Tianlong Chen and Huixing Yu in the car with several cell phones and 658 gift cards in the car.   These four had hit stores in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York before being arrested in Kentucky. 

St. Matthew's Police chief Barry Wilkerson said the gift cards they recovered were worth at least $1 million. Tianlong Chen entered a guilty plea on 11JUL2025 and will remain in custody until sentencing on 16OCT2025. 

Gainesville, Florida

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24536188-gainesville-case-detailed-arrest-report/

24AUG2024 - The Alachua County Sheriff's office pulled over a Hertz rental vehicle being driven by Cheng Li, 25, with female passenger Jiaxin Jiang, 24.   The car was rented by Jiang despite him only possessing a New York Learner's permit.  After a narcotics K-9 hit on the car, the car was searched and found to contain 1,764 gift cards from Apple, Target, Visa, Mastercard, and American Express.  A GPS review provided by Hertz confirmed that the pair had left Long Island, New York, stopping at two Target stores in Laurel, Virginia, ten Target stores in the Duluth/Atlanta Georgia area, two Target stores in Knoxville, Tennessee, and a Target store in Johnson City, North Carolina before being arrested after a stop at the Target store in Gainesville, Florida.  Their mapping software indicated they were headed to a Target store in Ocala, Florida next. 

A review of Cheng's cell phones (after a search warrant) revealed that he had been involved in "Target fraud" chats on WeChat since as far back as December 2022. Ledgers on Jiang's computer showed they had been collecting gift card numbers and their associated PINs going back as far as 09AUG2022. WeChat groups retrieved by the phone show groups with as many as 1558 messages and 257 photos with some groups having as many as eleven members who all seemed involved in the same types of activities. 

The Chinese language website "https://www.uscardforum.com/t/topic/321165" shared a Chinese version of the traffic stop, complete with opening the trunk and finding the cards! 

The couple tell the police they are in Florida because they wanted to see a crocodile! 

 (Watch on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YChGKg2KrDo - jump to 16:40 for the "trunk reveal." ) 

Ventura, California

15MAY2024 - Ventura County detectives are part of the Ventura County Organized Retail Theft Task Force (VCORTTF).  They were operating a "blitz" against organized retail crime, deploying detectives in coordination with loss prevention specialists in retail stores. when they arrested Tingxiang Yang, 39, and Lingyu Chen, 35.  They were in possession of 800 gift cards stolen from a Moorpark Target store. They were released after posting $20,000 bail. 

Ocala, Florida

 https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/chinese-national-pleads-guilty-gift-card-fraud-scheme

17OCT2023 - a police officer in Ocala, Florida arrested Donghui Liao, age 32.  Liao was observed taking gift cards from his black shoulder back and placing those gift cards on a gift card display in a Target store. Seventy-one cards on the rack were found to have been altered.  The cards had been shop-lifted, scratched to reveal their PIN, "re-silvered" so that they did not appear to have been scratched, and then returned to card racks in stores.  Liao was found to be on surveillance camera imagery at stores in Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, and Florida. 

When police searched his car, they found 6,032 additional gift cards with a face value of $1,886,000! 

Donghui was sentenced to 33 months in prison with 3 years supervised release to follow. 

Millions and Millions of Fraud Domains: China attacks Illegal Gambling and Telecom Fraud

Last week I was reviewing a publication by the United Nation Office on Drugs and Crime published in January 2024, titled "Casinos, Money Laundering, Underground Banking, and Transnational Organized Crime in East and Southeast Asia: A Hidden and Accelerating Threat."

(URL to the UNODC report: UNODC: Casinos, Money Laundering, Underground Banking ... full report)

(URL to the USIP report: https://www.usip.org/node/160386 )

The reason I was looking into the report is that this 106 page report is about how Chinese organized crime has planted themselves in Casino complexes across Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, the Philippine, Thailand, and Viet Nam. The same modus operandi that we associate with the crypto investment scams that use the horrible name "pig butchering" to describe the financial grooming that leads to the complete financial devastation of so many Americans. In fact, I discovered the UN report, only by seeing it quoted in he report by the United States Institute of Peace, "Transnational Crime in Southeast Asia: A Growing Threat to Global Peace and Security" where it was mentioned in a footnote.

Examining Chinese Ministry of Public Security reports

The UNODC report shares statistics from a Ministry of Public Security of China note, without providing a URL, that "between January to November 2023, authorities in the country successfully resolved 391,000 cases related to telecommunications and network fraud, totaling the arrest of 79,000 suspects, including 263 'backbone members or paymasters' of cyberfraud groups" (in the countries mentioned above.) This included:

• interception of 2.75 BILLION fraud calls
• interception of 2.28 BILLION fraud messages
• the removal of 8.36 million fraud-related domain names
• and 328.8 billion yuan (US $46 billion) in funds related to fraud cases.

Since I am working on a project that we call "Twenty Targets for Takedown" that is attempting to shut own illicit websites by terminating their domain registrations and hosting arrangements, the number "8.36 million fraud-related domains" made me shudder. I am fortunate to count among my network some of the leading experts in domain-name related fraud and abuse, the number seemed overwhelmingly high, and I asked my colleagues from CAUCE, the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email, for assistance in looking into it. One quick opinion was that this could include a definition of domain name that would be more akin to a hostname, similar to what we have on Blogspot. "garwarner.blogspot.com" is a hostname on the domain "blogspot.com" ... but some would call it a "fully qualified domain name" and consider it a separate FQDN than other xyz.blogspot.com or abc.blogspot.com "domains." John Levine helped me solve the "did they really mean millions, or is this possibly a bad translation" by helping me find the Ministry of Public Security site where the article was coming from and share several updated versions of these statistics.

MPS Article: Significant success in combating telecom and internet fraud

18 Million Websites! 

The latest article we can find, dated 31MAY2024, quotes Li Guozhong ( 李国中 ) the Spokesman for China's Ministry of Pubic Security describing their successes over the past five years.  In 2021, they established a National Anti-Fraud Center which sent out 660 million notices and were able to help stop fraud against 18.44 million people. This most recent article, which is focused on fraud and doesn't mention gambling at all, says that they have "handled 18 million domain names and websites."  That's a machine translation of ( 处置涉案域名网址1800万个 ).  I can confirm the 18 million ... written as 1800 ten thousands - 1800万个.  Handled is perhaps better rendered "disposed of" 处置  (Chǔzhì).  Still unsure how to interpret 域名 ( Yùmíng - Domain name) 网址 (Wǎngzhǐ - website), but I think for now, I'm going to assume it means "URLs" or "FQDNs" as opposed to only registered domains 

The Anti-Fraud Center has intercepted 6.99 billion fraud calls and 6.84 billion text messages and intercepted 1.1 trillion yuan of funds. At current exchange rates, that would be around $151 Billion US Dollars!   

Just since July 2023, 49,000 cyber fraud suspects have been transferred to China from northern Myanmar. 82,000 criminal suspect have been arrested, including 426 key "financial backers" behind the fraud groups.  

Several maps help to demonstrate what's going on in Southeast Asia: 

(Source: Figure 1 from the afore-mentioned USIP report) 

Source: afore-mentioned UNODC report -- note the Myanmar/China border, which is where most of the Chinese rescues and raids have been conducted.

How Much Fraud? $64 Billion to $157 Billion per year!

The US Institute of Peace report estimates that there are as many as 500,000 scammers deployed in the region, earning potentially $64 Billion per year in fraud. The methodology they used for this calculation came from the UNODC report above. On p. 55 of that report, the UN said that they estimated each scammer was earning between $300 and 400 per day, and that they believed there were 80,000 to 100,000 scammers working six days per week in one unnamed Mekong country.  Using that estimate, they gave a "range" of $7.5 Billion to $12.5 billion in scam revenue for that country.  These numbers were calculated consistently with a Chinese MPS report about an initiative they called "Operation Chain Break" which estimated that scam compounds, including gambling and cyber scams, were generating $157 Billion per year. 

China's Ministry of Public Security is actively conducting military style raids to help recover these fraud suspects from northern Myanmar, where China shares a long border with the country, which remains deeply embroiled in a state of civil war. MPS is also working collectively with other Southeast Asian countries and says it has "destroyed 37 overseas fraud dens." 

China Launches Month of National Anti-Fraud Action

Today (24JUN2024) China launched a new month-long "National Anti-Fraud Action" with a nation-wide campaign that declares "Beware of new fraud methods and don't be a tool for telecom fraud."  The campaign uses what China calls a "Five-In" approach, meaning that Chinese citizens will see and spread anti-fraud messages in Communities, Rural Areas, Families, Schools, and Businesses.  Students will be provided materials to share with their families, Employees will be encouraged to share anti-fraud messages and materials with their families and communities, and Chinese Communist Party offices in rural areas and civic organizations will make sure the message is spread in those areas as well. The materials being prepared will be written separately to address the awareness needs of merchants, accounting personnel, minors, and the elderly, describing each fraud typology and helping to describe methods to safeguard from these typologies. A major objective will also be to help understand how to avoid becoming a "tool" or an "accomplice" of these fraud rings, who prey on the financially vulnerable to help them launder the proceeds of their crime.  The Ministry of Public Security will jointly publish the "Overseas Telecom Network Fraud Prevention Handbook with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Education to help improve prevention awareness especially for overseas students and diaspora Chinese communities. Major news media and new media platforms will continuously feature anti-fraud reports to strengthen and educate the public on fraud prevention and "continue to set off a new wave of anti-fraud among the whole people the whole society." 

Gee, doesn't that sound like REACT's Erin West and Operation Shamrock -- but with the full cooperation of the Government and Society? 

The announcement of the month of National Anti-Fraud Action concludes with some more recent statistics about the work of the National Anti-Fraud Center.  Just since 2023, today's report says that they have: 

• pushed out 420 million warning and dissuasion instructions
• met with 14.77 million people face-to-face to give warnings 
• made 310 million phone calls to warn vitims 
• sent 230 million dissuasion text messages
• intercepted 3.7 billion fraud calls 
• intercepted 2.96 billion fraud-related text messages
• blocked 11.619 million fraud-related domain names -- BLOCKED - this may mean "prevented access via Chinese Internet -- which may mean the sites are still available to victimize foreigners
• intercepted 452.9 billion yuan of funds ($62 Billion USD) 

What does this mean to those of us in the United States?  If China is doing an all-hands "Five-In" awareness campaign and deploying police for face-to-face dissuasion, the fraudsters may very realistically need to INCREASE their targeting of overseas victims to make up for the projected revenue hit this new effort may create. 

To quote Director Easterly at CISA: SHIELDS UP! 

Vietnam's Massive CAPTCHA crackers vs. Microsoft DCU

Earlier this month, Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit was featured in a WIRED article by Lily Hay Newman - Microsoft’s Digital Crime Unit Goes Deep on How It Disrupts Cybercrime. In part, the article discusses MS-DCU's case against the hackers that they call Storm-1152. According to DCU, Storm-1152 used their CAPTCHA-cracking capabilities to assist other criminals in the massive creation of Microsoft email accounts, such as Hotmail and Outlook accounts. How many? How about 750 MILLION email accounts created for illicit purposes! In their announcement about Storm-1152, DCU's Amy Hogan-Burney calls out several of the websites run by the group, including Hotmailbox[.]me, 1stCAPTCHA[.]com, AnyCAPTCHA[.]com, and NoneCAPTCHA[.]com.   (I'm not familiar with NoneCAPTCHA, but it looks like it was just a redirect domain to 1stCAPTCHA.)  Amy shares that the group is based in Vietnam and names three of their operators: Duong Dinh Tu, Linh Van Nguyễn (also known as Nguyễn Van Linh), and Tai Van Nguyen.

hotmailbox[.]me

1stCaptcha[.]com

AnyCaptcha[.]com

Some example code is still on github that illustrates how these massive CAPTCHA solvers were used.  For example "CuongPhan1408" has a 1stCaptcha written in GoLang and shows examples in his code of solving Discord account creations using "HCaptchaTaskProxyless" and using "FunCaptchaTaskProxyless" to defeat Microsoft's Live signups.  FunCaptcha is the tool created by Arkose Labs which is currently used by Microsoft to confirm that emails are only created by humans. 

Github user HecTran12 shares code that links to the now-seized-by-Microsoft website 1stcaptcha[.]com which could previously be installed with "pip install 1stcaptcha." HecTran12's FunCaptcha example solves Outlook[.]com captchas to make new Outlook accounts. 

Github user "Xtekky" shares his AnyCaptcha[.]com-based code called "Outlook Gen" which is Python code that links to the Microsoft-seized website "AnyCaptcha[.]com" to create Outlook accounts in volume.  The code has 45 stars and 15 forks on Github.

Clearly the USERS of Outlook Gen, based on the forks, included many people from many parts of the world.  XTekky has many interesting tools on his Telegram and Discord channels, including "tools" for creating views and likes on TikTok using bots. He demonstrates by sharing a "why so many likes?" video on his TikTok which has been liked 912,400 times.  This relies on his TikTok Slider CAPTCHA Solver, which he claims has 100% accuracy in defeating the TikTok captcha.  XTekky also has a Discord "Question-based" CAPTCHA solver, which uses OpenAI's ChatGPT to solve the questions and provide the answers.  

With three major CAPTCHA-solving tools taken down by Microsoft, what's filling their place?  Based on examining new starring and forking from Github users who liked the old projects, it looks like Russia-based "AntiCaptchaOfficial" is the likely leader.  It claims to solve images with text, Recaptcha v2/v3 Enterprise or non-Enterprise, Funcaptcha Arcoselabs, GeeTest and hCaptcha Enterprise or non-Enterprise, and currently charges rates averaging $0.0005 per solved CAPTCHA. That would be 2,000 account creations per $1. 

Microsoft credits Arkose Labs with their help in investigating the case against Storm-1152, but if the stats page at "anti-Captcha[.]com" can be believed, their site is currently cracking 10,000+ Arkose Labs CAPTCHAs per minute.  Only reCAPTCHA v2 is experiencing more cracks per minute (currently 19,000+). Arkose should be pleased that they are one of the most expensive CAPTCHAs to solve.  Anti-Captcha is currently charging $3 per 1,000.  Their website claims that they are helping disadvantaged workers around the world. 

"With your help, they now have a choice between working in toxic factory conditions or on a computer." 

Their stories don't seem to say "Rather than work in a toxic factory, I help cybercriminals commit fraud and theft by making fake accounts on Outlook, Google, TikTok, Discord and more."

China continues Pig-Butchering Crack-down

One of my techniques for keeping current on Cybercrime trends is having an "interesting" collection of international news ticklers. This story came to me via X:CyberScamMonitor via a QQ account called "onCambodia." @CyberScamMonitor is a Twitter/X account and Substack account dedicated to tracking online scam and gambling operations in Southeast Asia and documenting human trafficking and human rights abuses. Great work and a strong recommendation to follow if you wish to learn more about the links between #CryptoScams and #PigButchering.

I apologize to the original journalist as I have been unable so far to find the original to give them full credit. For reference, the Chinese article I refer to provides the source as 来源：鲁中晨报 (Source: Luzhong Morning News). The headline is: "Chinese woman was arrested after returning to China! Uncovering the financial backers of a fraud syndicate in Sihanoukville." If anyone has a link to the Luzhong Morning News version, please comment and I will update! This post is mostly just a retelling of their story in English!

The story told, in my opinion, should have the headline "Diligent Police Task Force won't stop tracking Fraudsters!" This story features the Yiyuan County Police who started with a telecom fraud case in their jurisdiction and followed it until they had wrapped up the entire organization and seized 200 million yuan from the criminals, 1/4th of it in cash, but also in real estate, luxury cars, watches, and liquour. That's over $28 Million USD! The case started with a local business who found that one of their employees had sent out 38 million yuan in just a few days. The employee was being extorted after installing a porn-dating app on his phone -- when the criminals learned where he worked they demanded that he send money from his company as well. 

 The case was taken up by the "3.01" Task Force. Yiyuan County is administered as part of Zibo City in Shandong Province of China. Police officers from county, city, and provincial level work together on the 3.01 Task Force.  (Shandong is in the east of China, across the Yellow Sea from South Korea.) The deputy magistrate of Yiyuan, Zhang Xiuguang (张秀光), takes an approach to cybercrime that reminds me of the work of the Garda National Economic Crimes Bureau in Ireland!  Zhang says "Since we established the task force, we have firmly believed that we must recover the losses and hit the core.  From catching the first culprit, we will not withdraw our troops until the case is solved!"

(map of Zibo City from medical article by Lili Liu and Ling Wang)

The case dragged on at a very slow pace, Yiyuan deputy director of public safety Ma Wencheng (马文成) described it as involving the tracing of funds from thousands of accounts and peeling back each account like peeling layers from bamboo shoots. Even with a 100 person task force, very little progress was being made, but that changed with a key arrest on 31AUG2022. The key piece of evidence as a suspicious mobile phone number. Among all of the hundreds of thousands of scraps of evidence, there was a telephone number belonging to a woman in Cambodia. Recognizing that Cambodia is the home of many telecom fraud rings, the head analyst for the task force, Lu Lu, focused on the owner of that number. The decision was made to wait for her to return to China. The police have assigned this key figure the alias Xie Xiaofang. When they learned that Xie was returning to China, the task force rushed to Zhengzhou in Henan Province and arrested her as she was leaving quarantine.

As she was questioned, Xie Xiaofang revealed that her #PigButchering group was based in the Chinatown setion of Sihanoukville, Cambodia. Her job within the organization was laundering the money, but she claimed despite her key role, she only knew middle managers in the gang, and then only by alias. The 3.01 Task Force team began tracking each person traveling to China from Sihanoukville and asking Xie Xiaofang to identify them. Within a few weeks, they had mapped out the leadership of the organization. On 17SEP2022, the team traveled to Jiangxi, Yunnan, Fujian, and other places, arresting two more key members and seven others, followed in quick succession by dozens more, eventually totaling 135 arrests. At this point, the Shandong Provincial Public Security Department thought it was time to reward their team.  The photo below shows the public ceremony where all of the local dignitaries publicly praised the work of the 3.01 Task Force, who had at this point seized 8.5 million yuan (about $1.1 million) and had key leaders of the gang in custody. 

(source: https://zibo.sdchina.com/show/4733923.html ) 

But the team was not done yet. As they interrogated those who had been arrested so far, they realized that there was still a bigger boss. The police assigned him the alias Tang Xiaowei, but they were cautioned by their current detainees that this guy has a "very strong sense of anti-reconnaissance." He only uses cash. He doesn't use mobile phones. He doesn't use credit cards.  He doesn't have a fixed address. But he was known to have a favorite place in Xiamen.  The head analyst, Lu Lu, however, believed that Tang would know about the arrests and would be looking for a way to get out of the country safely, and in the mountains of evidence, Lu Lu believed there was a clue to his exit point. Someone under their surveillance had arranged for a large party in "an Internet celebrity hotel" in Guilin, Guangxi. Lu Lu was confident this would be for Tang. 

Speeding down the highway for nearly 1200 miles with members of the 3.01 task force, Lu Lu's vehicle fell into a pit related to some road construction, but they acquired another vehicle and continued on through the night. They arrived just in time to arrest Tang and his closest associates!  It turned out that Tang and his gang were leaving for the coast that morning where a boat was waiting to smuggle them out of the country and back to Cambodia!  They had the actual top kingpin in their hands and now they could finally pull apart the entire organization.  

Based on the information they acquired, additional arrest teams were sent to Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangxi, Hebei, Henan, Guizhou and other cities where 18 teams assigned to different roles for the organization were arrested.  Three technical teams, 1 "payment on behalf" gang, and 14 "point running" gangs totaling 197 additional criminal suspects.  Boxes and suitcases loaded with cash were seized.

While the case that started with the Yiyuan County Police investigating one employee who seemed to be embezzling funds, it led to 38 million yuan ($5.3 million USD) being returned to citizens in Yiyuan and Zibo City and has spawned countless additional investigations as the national and international connections are still being traced. 

This is what COULD happen if we follow the model of the brave Yiyuan Police (the same model which the Garda National Economic Crime Bureaus follows!)  DON'T STOP.  DON'T take your local arrests and be happy with them.  FOLLOW EVERY LEAD.  

We'll close with this quote from Zhang Xiuguan ... 

"No matter how far you run, the Yiyuan police are not afraid of hardships and dangers.  They will catch you no matter how far you go!" 

Resources:

• https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/IZJMXYTkKF8H0lksAHNOjQ
• https://twitter.com/johnwSEAP/status/1729426989310980377
• https://zibo.sdchina.com/show/4733923.html

Online Shopping Reminder: If It Looks Too Good To Be True ...

As we look towards the Christmas holiday, 'tis the season for freaking out and making poor decisions with regards to online shopping. Tonight a friend reached out to get my help in convincing his family that an incredible laptop sale they saw on laptop was not real.

That's the ad they saw on Facebook.  "Due to special reasons" the company has decided to "sell the last batch of laptops." If you click the Shop Now button, it takes you to the website "maxwellplaceonhudson[.]com"

Now, I'm not saying that everyone who re-uses an image is a scammer, but John J. Rogers and MaxwellPlaceHudson are using a photo from a 2019 Mainichi News article in Japan about the fact that computers were piling up in warehouses in China.  Doesn't that look familiar?  

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20191223/p2g/00m/0bu/050000c

John J. Rogers is being an extremely helpful and interactive salesperson as people are asking him how long it takes to ship the laptops.  He's giving recommendations on which model to order, and estimates on shipping time.

But How Do We Know It's Real?  ... Testimonials!

Just look at all the happy customers! "Sdhuy Fhabn" says "This is a quality built and spec'd laptop! Very satisfied!"

Strange that all of the comments on Sdhuy's page are in Filipino.  Even stranger? Someone named Tonie Pomintel thanked the computer seller "Memasabe" for a laptop using exactly the same words!

Mandy also loves his new laptop.  "Mine has arrived, this is an unexpected laptop, it even has a touch screen, I like it very much!" he gushes.

Mandy lives in Quezon City, Philippines, which does make it seem odd that he would be mail-ordering a laptop from New Jersey.  Even stranger?  "Ams Minang" shared exactly the same image to thank "Memasabe" for her new laptop!

MD tells us "So far so good, works great, looks great!" 

But then, for MD, people who look like John J. Rogers are kind of "his type."

I'm sure that Mandy and Sdhuy are fine people.  But let me tell you friends, MD, he's a Scammer!

MD Sajjad is a fake account that is giving a fake testimonial.

Take a look at his Facebook "Likes" -- 

He likes John J. Rogers, Noah Robert, Oliver Noah, Sean M Hemming, Debra Carter, Gerry R Frederickson, George S Krebs, and RiodiJanero ... who surprisingly all have the same two profile pictures!

Romance Scam and Online Fraud expert "FireFly" at www.scamsurvivors.com let us know that one of these men is the model "Michael Justin."  The profile picture is swiped from a 16MAY2019 post by Instagram user @themichaeljustin: 

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bxizn4iFWXy/ (@themichaeljustin)

The other primary profile picture is from a photo sales site and is entitled "businessman with laptop thinking at night office." 

https://photodune.net/item/businessman-with-laptop-thinking-at-night-office/20174205

Let's look at what else they have in common!

	Noah Robert is a "Computer Company" ... oh gee! On November 25th "due to special reasons" he starting selling computers from his website "ajakubowski[.]com" You may be surprised to know that ajakubowski's website is IDENTICAL to  MaxwellPlaceHudson's website! His telephone number is in Afghanistan. (+93 is international dialing code for Afghanistan.) Email ioiw7nkrvs@claimab.com https://www.facebook.com/Noah-Robert-103879551585935/
	Oliver Noah is a Computer Company. You'll never guess! Due to Special Reasons, he's selling the last batch of his laptops!  His website, "utoal[.]com" strangely looks EXACTLY like John's website! Sort of odd that he has an Afghanistan telephone number (+93) Email n7x1z325fk@thrubay.com https://www.facebook.com/Oliver-Noah-100751858389405/
	Sean M Hemming is a Computer Company . Guess what! Due to Special Reasons, he's selling the last batch of his laptops!  He has an Afghanistan telephone number and his website is MarbleTownGreen[.]com. (But it's closed down now.) https://www.facebook.com/Sean-M-Hemming-769171696455694/ Facebook tells us the Page Manager location is Bangladesh
	Debra G. Carter is a Computer Company. Guess what! Due to Special Reasons, he's selling the last batch of his laptops. He has a +93 Afghani telephone number and his website is "teamlse[.]com" https://www.facebook.com/Debra-G-Carter-746064202423878/ Facebook tells us the Page Managers are in Indonesia, Liberia, Saint Vincent, and the Grenadines.
	You might already be able to guess on this next one. Gerry R Fredericksen is a Computer Company.  Due to Special Reasons, he's selling the last batch of his laptops.  He has a +93 Afghani telephone number and  His website is "legeb[.]com" is currently disabled. https://www.facebook.com/Gerry-R-Fredericksen-104079251980543/
	George S Krebs is a Computer Company.  Due to Special Reasons, he's selling the last batch of his laptops.  His email is "esi01uo8d15@claimab.com"  His website is "highlyacceleratedstresstest[.]com" is offline. https://www.facebook.com/wo.kya.hoti/
	RiodiJanero is a Computer Company.  Due to Special Reasons, he's selling the last batch of his laptops. His email is xdwdseiwb6@linshiyouxiang.net His website is PineappleHillDesigns[.]com is offline. He has a +93 Afghani telephone number.

So, getting back to the original question:  

Actually, I'm thinking that you may not really be able to buy a $2,600 laptop for $79 and have it delivered anywhere in the world in time for Christmas.  But then, my friends all tell me that I'm paranoid.

And there's so many more ... 

 

another Fake testimonial account: https://www.facebook.com/ams.minang.5/likes 

https://www.facebook.com/antonia.pomintel.5/likes_all

• Helen Z Picket
  • https://www.facebook.com/Helen-Z-Pickett-111752013985708/
  • http://andaluciapropertyservices.com/
  • (216) 755-9391
• Jackie K Freund
  • https://www.facebook.com/Jackie-K-Freund-448774108917513/
  • http://affordablegreensystems.com/
• Andrew H Doyle
  • https://www.facebook.com/Andrew-H-Doyle-105266824762892/
  • http://affordablegreensystems.com/
  • +93212-307-8110
• Memasabe
  • https://www.facebook.com/Memasabe-103806308164677/
  • http://snvpL.com/
  • +93803-520-1898
• Fernando
• https://www.facebook.com/Fernando-1894457434202054/
• http://caughtfromabove.com/
• 6trmfvuo2sh@thrubay.com
• +93704-927-4239
• Anne P Dudley
• https://www.facebook.com/Anne-P-Dudley-141541912968147/
• http://fricade.com/
• y38msxh8zps@claimab.com
• Dean B Vigil
• https://www.facebook.com/Dean-B-Vigil-116775383783140/
• http://fmpcms.com/ (live) 
• +93816-539-3967
• shhk60jhpng@claimab.com
• A Addawd
• https://www.facebook.com/A-addawd-100571795787651/
• http://schoolbackpackstore.com/ (live) 
• Criative
• https://www.facebook.com/criativcalcad/
• http://fourteenkaratomaha.com/
• 5c992xqncjc@thrubay.com
• My House 
• https://www.facebook.com/My-House-100743925704289/
• https://konamitech.com/ nbsp;(live) 
• +213717-630-6321
• gv2q360p9q@claimab.com
• Helen T Lewis
• https://www.facebook.com/Hector-T-Lewis-106551108311154
• http://stevestoyboxny.com/
• +93304-763-9483
• ftxwy0rlela@linshiyouxiang.net
• Leonia D Hill
• https://www.facebook.com/Leonia-D-Hill-107212691802456/
• https://chealyjean.com/
• +93361-299-6243
• ioiw7rnkrvs@claimab.com
• Kermit
• https://www.facebook.com/Kermit-119766538090600/
  
• http://certificadoscolombia.com/

And the network is even bigger, because they also have female fake store owners selling Mobile Phones: