A man has been sentenced to eight years in prison after Ventura County prosecutors say he swindled Southern California stores out of hundreds of thousands of dollars through an electronics scam. Investigators say Peter Nhan of El Monte was taking part in what’s known as computer hard drive shucking.
He would purchase new drives at stores like Target, Wal Mart, and Best Buy, and replace the good drives with worn out, worthless ones. He’d then return themto the stores for cash.
Detectives say he made more than a half million dollars reselling the hard drives he obtained through the scheme. Nhan pled guilty to 12 felony counts ranging from conspiracy to organized retail theft.
In addition to the eight year prison sentence, Nhan was ordered to pay more than $580,000 in restitution to the stores.
