Liang Xiong

Introduction

Liang Xiong, a 39-year-old Chinese national, pleaded guilty on November 4, 2026, in U.S. District Court in St. Louis to one count of possession of 15 or more unauthorized access devices, admitting his role in a nationwide gift-card tampering scheme that ran from February 24, 2026, through at least March 11, 2026. According to his plea agreement, Xiong stole gift cards from retailers across the United States by peeling back the strip concealing each card’s serial number, recording that number, and placing the compromised cards back on display racks in stores in Colorado, Iowa and Missouri — so that once an unwitting customer bought and activated a card, Xiong and others could drain its funds using the number they had recorded. He is scheduled to be sentenced on February 10, 2027.

Background Information

The scheme’s mechanics made every retail rack a target. By recording serial numbers before purchase, a tamperer gains the keys to cards that belong to future buyers: the physical card sells legitimately, the customer loads it with value, and the number-holder redeems or spends that value first. Xiong’s admitted version operated across at least three states — Colorado, Iowa and Missouri — with the compromised cards returned to display at stores where no one could distinguish them from stock. The charge he pleaded to, possession of 15 or more unauthorized access devices, treats each compromised card number as an access device, the same legal category federal fraud prosecutors use for stolen account credentials. The case was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations and the St. Charles Police Department, and is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Karin Schute.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Pleaded guilty; sentencing pending. Xiong pleaded guilty on November 4, 2026, to possession of 15 or more unauthorized access devices, admitting the gift-card tampering described below; his sentencing is set for February 10, 2027.

The plea agreement documents the operation’s final days in detail. On March 10, 2026, Xiong admitted stealing 15 Amazon gift cards from a store in O’Fallon, Missouri. The next day, he placed 16 previously stolen Apple gift cards into a display in a store in St. Charles — and was arrested that same day by St. Charles police, who found 134 compromised gift cards from three retailers in his vehicle. The total value of those cards would have been $58,300 had they been purchased and activated by paying customers. Every card in the case was recovered before any customer bought it, according to the plea agreement — which means the recorded serial numbers were seized before they could be used, and no victim purchase appears in the court record. Court documents also indicate Xiong entered the country illegally through Mexico and has a pending asylum claim.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The announcement closed with a consumer warning from HSI — Homeland Security Investigations recommends looking out for signs that gift cards have been altered or counterfeited — turning the case into a public advisory about the tampering pattern Xiong admitted. The consequences on his record are concrete: a felony conviction admitted by plea, a sentencing hearing set for February 10, 2027, a statutory maximum of ten years in prison plus a $250,000 fine, and — because of his immigration situation as documented in court papers — a likely deportation upon release from prison. The recovery of all 134 cards before purchase meant the scheme ended with the attempted theft rather than completed consumer losses, a fact the plea agreement records explicitly.

Current Status

Xiong remains in the case pending sentencing on February 10, 2027, before the St. Louis federal court where he pleaded guilty. The admitted conduct spans the February 24 – March 11, 2026 window and the three-state card trail; the conviction is final as a plea of record, but the punishment is unexecuted until sentencing. The potential penalty is up to ten years and a $250,000 fine, and the Justice Department announcement states he will also likely be deported upon release from prison, tying the criminal case to his pending immigration posture. The announcement did not report a plea agreement on the sentence itself, so the February hearing will set the term.

Impact on Their Career/Life

For Xiong, the plea converts a two-week tampering run into a federal fraud conviction with a likely removal from the United States to follow: sentenced in February 2027, imprisoned, then deported as the court record anticipates. The 134 compromised cards from three retailers in his vehicle are now evidence of an industrial method rather than a shoplifting spree: serial-number harvesting at display racks across three states, executed systematically enough that the vehicle became a mobile warehouse of compromised access devices. The case is also a template for consumers: the tamper-proof strip is the only barrier between a rack card and whoever peeled it, and HSI’s advisory outlives the case. Xiong’s February sentencing will attach a number to the scheme the plea documents.

Sources

• U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of Missouri, “Chinese National Admits Nationwide Gift Card Fraud,” November 4, 2026. source