During three months in summer last year, over 30,000 Apple devices, worth some $35 million, were shipped to a warehouse in a small industrial park in Amherst, New Hampshire. They may have appeared to be legitimate orders, but every iPhone and iPad stored at the facility was bought with gift cards obtained through romance scams, account hacks and sextortion, according to a seizure warrant detailing a DHS investigation obtained by Forbes.

Romance and sextortion scams often see victims tricked into believing they’re in an intimate relationship with a person online. The swindlers then either trick them into buying them gift cards or tell them that if they don’t, their nude photos will be published.

In Amherst, investigators tied the scams back to organized crime in China. The warehouse workers were largely Chinese nationals, according to the warrant to seize Apple devices at the facility, and the fraudulently-obtained gift cards were almost entirely........

© Forbes