> Three men have been arrested in connection with a gift card cloning scheme that Texas authorities say netted an estimated $14 million.

> Authorities said the men would take gift cards from store shelves without paying for or activating them. They would then take the cards to another location and carefully open the packaging to steal the electronically stored number from the back of the card.

> “They put it either on another card or just store it in a computer system,” Haecker said.

> The suspects would then repackage the cards and return them to stores, placing them back where they originally found them.