Most of the losses (in $ terms) from these scams do not involve gift cards. They involve the scammers convincing you to install some remote desktop software and emptying your bank account.
It's already illegal to send people to open bank accounts with fake IDs, but the scammers have no problem cashing out the bulk of their profits like that.
Sometimes they transfer to a cryptocurrency exchange, sometimes they go to a branch to withdraw everything. Banks don't really like either of those, so issuing checks and cashing them somewhere else is a common scheme.
Some may bounce the money through a few accounts and eventually into a business account that'll send it overseas, it depends.
The people on the ground are random replaceable idiots.
Most of the losses (in $ terms) from these scams do not involve gift cards. They involve the scammers convincing you to install some remote desktop software and emptying your bank account.
It's already illegal to send people to open bank accounts with fake IDs, but the scammers have no problem cashing out the bulk of their profits like that.