A carefully orchestrated "gift card draining" scam allowed two men from Southern California to access the funds from activated gift cards that were sold at more than 200 CVS stores across California, police announced on Tuesday.

Yongsheng Zhao, 29, of El Monte and Zhipeng Li, 33, of Monterey Park were spotted on Aug. 7 stopping at numerous CVS stores in Sonoma County and then followed by a sergeant into a Santa Rosa location where Zhao was seen manipulating gift cards on the shelves while concealing other gift cards in his possession, the Santa Rosa Police Department posted on Facebook.

Detectives then coordinated a traffic stop where Zhao and Li were found with approximately 10,000 gift cards bundled and coded by store location. Notes and ledgers documenting the operation spanning over

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