A Flushing, New York woman accused of scamming a Newton, New Jersey resident out of roughly $5,000 through a fake tech-support pop-up has been extradited to New Jersey and lodged at the Morris County Correctional Facility, more than two years after the victim first reported the fraud. Lixi Wang, identified by investigators in the case, was arrested in New York on July 29, 2026, and processed on an outstanding criminal complaint warrant before being brought back across state lines.
According to Newport Dispatch, the case began in April 2024 when the Newton Police Department received a report of a computer-related gift card scam. The victim told police he received an alert on his laptop claiming his computer had been compromised, then called a number displayed in the pop-up and was connected to someone who falsely identified himself as a fraud prevention specialist. That scammer instructed the victim to purchase Home Depot gift cards and directed him to hand over the card information, according to the same report.
Detective Sergeant Judy Torres conducted a follow-up investigation that traced the redemption of the gift cards across state lines to retail locations in Massachusetts, per Newport Dispatch. WRNJ Radio adds that the initial report was first taken by Patrolman Steven Siek before it was handed off to Torres, whose inquiry stretched over roughly two years before a criminal complaint warrant was issued for Wang and she was entered into the National Crime Information Center as a wanted person.
An Arrest In New York, An Extradition To New Jersey
The Nassau County Police Department arrested Wang in New York on the outstanding warrant, and the Sussex County Prosecutor's Office assisted with her extradition back to New Jersey, Newport Dispatch reports. Wang, 40, of Flushing, is now pending further court proceedings in Sussex County and, as with any defendant, is presumed innocent unless proven guilty in a court of law.
Because Sussex County's own jail closed in Newton years ago, the county now relies on a long-term shared services agreement with Morris County, established in 2019, to house its pre-trial detainees and sentenced inmates at the 524-bed Morris County Correctional Facility in Morris Township, according to the Sussex County Sheriff's Office. That arrangement explains why a defendant arrested on a Newton warrant ends up lodged in a neighboring county rather than locally.
A Familiar Name In A Much Larger Fraud Case
Wang's arrest is not her first brush with gift card fraud allegations. In March 2025, the Nassau County District Attorney's Office charged a Lixi Wang, 40, of Flushing, Queens, along with six co-defendants, with second-degree money laundering and fourth-degree conspiracy in connection with a 15-month, $20 million money laundering operation built around Home Depot and Lowe's gift cards, according to the Nassau County District Attorney's Office. Prosecutors in that case said the wider scheme defrauded more than 1,800 victims across 45 states.
The Long Island Herald reported that the ring used spyware pop-ups to steer victims into buying Home Depot and Lowe's gift cards, which members then redeemed across roughly 80 retail stores in New York to buy bulk building materials, including copper pipes, electrical wire, and water heaters, for resale to businesses in New York City. Police recovered 12 box trucks of merchandise and $100,000 in cash during those arrests, per the same report. The Newton case fits that same operational pattern almost exactly, with a computer pop-up scam funneling a victim's Home Depot gift cards into out-of-state redemption before the funds could be traced or reversed.
It remains an open question whether New Jersey prosecutors intend to consolidate the Newton charge with the New York case, seek restitution specifically for the Sussex County victim, or how Wang's 2025 New York felony charges currently stand.
What New Jersey Law Says About The Charge
Under New Jersey's theft by deception statute, N.J.S.A. 2C:20-4, stealing property valued between $500 and $75,000 through deception is classified as a third-degree crime, carrying a potential sentence of three to five years in state prison and fines up to $15,000 upon conviction, according to Justia Law. That statute requires proof a suspect purposefully created or reinforced a false impression to obtain property, which would apply to the roughly $5,000 the Newton victim reported losing.
New Jersey lawmakers have also moved to tighten enforcement around this kind of fraud. In February 2025, the state Legislature passed Senate Bill 3587, which increased criminal penalties for organized retail theft and now requires stores that sell gift cards to train employees on spotting and preventing gift card fraud, according to the New Jersey State Legislature. The law also allows civil penalties of $1,000 per violation, enforced by the state's Division of Consumer Affairs.
A Scam Pattern Costing Americans Billions
Cases like Newton's are part of a much larger national trend. Federal Trade Commission data released in March 2026 showed Americans reported losing $3.5 billion to imposter scams in 2025, making tech-support and business impersonation the most common category of consumer fraud in the country, with total reported fraud losses nationwide reaching $15.9 billion. Separately, per the National Conference of State Legislatures, consumers filed more than 41,000 fraud reports in 2024 involving gift cards or prepaid cards as the payment method, accounting for $212 million in direct losses.
The Federal Trade Commission's consumer advice warns that pop-up alerts claiming a computer has been compromised are fraudulent, and that no legitimate tech support company or government agency will ever demand payment through retail gift cards. Scammers rely on urgency and fear, the agency notes, to isolate victims and keep them from verifying the claim before it's too late.
The Newton case joins a string of similar gift card fraud prosecutions Hoodline has tracked in recent months, including a $2.2 million Albany sentencing and a separate case involving a $4 million Home Depot gift card theft in Covington. Wang's pending court proceedings in Sussex County will determine what, if any, connection prosecutors formally draw between the Newton loss and the broader New York fraud network.
