CONCORD, NH — Concord police have arrested three more people after a stolen gift card incident at a pharmacy in Concord Heights last month.
Around 1 p.m. on March 25, police were sent to Walgreens on Loudon Road for a report of a gift card theft incident. The suspect was described as an Asian man wearing a black jacket and a black hat fled west on Loudon Road. After eyeing security camera footage from the nearby community center, police dispatch also reported the suspect was wearing black pants and white sneakers.
An officer gathered evidence at the store while others searched the area.
Security camera footage showed the suspect being dropped off in a gray minivan with New York plates. The van, however, had left the area after the incident unfolded, an affidavit stated.
A community service aide spotted the suspect who was leaving the area near CVS on Loudon Road. The suspect was stopped at Burns Avenue and East Side Drive and identified as Huihuang H. Zheng, 46, of Horace Harding in Flushing, NY, via a New York ID card, a report stated.
Two detectives, including one who had been working on a prior case about suspects from China, accused of being involved in gift cards and high-end electronic thefts in Concord, Nashua, and other communities, began investigating the incident. According to security footage, Zheng was accused of removing “a large quantity of gift cards off the rack” and putting them in his jacket. After being confronted by a store employee, Zheng “pulled several $100 Apple gift cards out of his jacket and threw them onto the ground inside the store,” a report stated. He was then accused of running out of the store.
Police said a woman also exited the minivan with Zheng. Zheng, too, happened to be wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap, the report stated. Police determined dozens of gift cards were involved in the incident and gave them an “aggregate statutory value” of $6,000, an affidavit said.
Zheng was arrested and charged with felony attempted theft by unauthorized taking or transfer.
A detective noted in the affidavit that police, as part of the previously mentioned multi-month international investigation into gift card thefts, had led to more than $10 million in stolen Apple products.
The detective also said the van being picked up on security footage indicated Zheng was not acting alone and maybe there were other suspects.
At the intersection of East Side Drive and Loudon Road, the detective spotted a middle-aged Asian man dressed in sweatpants and a sweatshirt pacing on the sidewalk while speaking on a cell phone. The detectives sat and watched the man for about 10 minutes. The reporting detective said the man looked toward the CVS and Walgreens area. Later, the detective wrote the man walked to the location where Zheng was arrested and appeared to be “looking for something.”
The reporting detective and another detective continued to watch the man from an unmarked police cruiser until he hopped into a Main Street Taxi cab. One of the detectives called the company to find out where the cab was headed while following the driver to the UPS Store on South Main Street.
After arriving, the man left the cab and walked toward a minivan, which matched the description of the one caught on camera outside Walgreens, a report stated.
The second detective approached the man, identified as Guoxin Zheng, 46, by a Chinese passport. The reporting detective also saw a woman inside the minivan who appeared to be “hunched over the rear seat … attempting to hide from us,” the detective wrote. The woman was asked to step out of the minivan and was identified as Fangqun Zhong, 38, also via a Chinese passport.
While stepping out of the minivan, the detective saw “several cardboard boxes stacked in the rear of the vehicle” as well as “several closed tote bags between the rear seat and floorboard,” the report stated. A follow-up with employees at the UPS store “revealed Fangqun and Guoxin had dropped off three sealed boxes at the store that were to be shipped to California,” the detective wrote. A report said each box weighed more than 40 pounds.
The minivan was seized pending a search warrant.
A special agent with Homeland Security Investigations informed the detective later that the minivan was rented at Enterprise in Zheng’s name.
Both Guoxin Zheng and Zhong were arrested the next day on a single felony count of theft by unauthorized taking-$1,501-plus each at the Hotel Concord on South Main Street.
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