Debit card fraud counted among the growing list of border crisis problems as organized crime from one European nation capitalized at California self-checkouts.
As cities across America reeled from an unending flow of illegal aliens — violent criminals and grifters among them — as well as devastating amounts of lethal opioids, the tired and poor were hardly the only huddled masses taking advantage of President Joe Biden’s open border. In fact, California prosecutors had been cracking down on “thousands” believed connected to the Romanian mob scamming everyday consumers.
Speaking with Fox News Digital, prosecutors explained how skimmers previously seen employed at ATMs and gas station terminals to swipe debit card information were now getting secreted at self-checkout scanners.
“They’ll have people sitting outside a Walmart or a Target, and it looks like they’re panhandling,” the outlet was told. “Sometimes they’ll have a couple of kids. And they are actually using Bluetooth technology that’s connected to the skimmers inside the stores. So it’s like a two for one, getting cash that people give them and stealing the numbers off the skimmers.”
Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer’s director of public affairs Kimberly Edds told Fox News Digital, “Thousands of criminals suspected to be tied to organized Romanian crime have been identified to be in the United States, with a large portion of them entering the United States illegally, mainly through the southern border.”
“A smaller portion of this population is entering as asylum seekers,” she added and indicated that, in addition to the skimming, they were also alleged to be trading food stamps for baby formula and energy drinks that were then resold in Mexico as part of a working relationship with the cartels.
A statement from Spitzer decried, “The victims are single mothers struggling to put a roof over their children’s heads and food on the table and hardworking people who need a helping hand who find themselves standing at the checkout line with bags full of groceries only to be humiliated when they find that they have no money in their account because a thief has surreptitiously taken everything.”
“Meanwhile,” he went on, “the thieves are using this money to fund organized crime, to buy luxury cars worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and to lead a life of luxury that the true recipients can only dream about.”
A social media post from the El Cajon Police Department remained pinned at the top of their page as it showed how readily the perpetrators could install a skimmer while providing a couple simple tips, including a quick pull on a point of sale reader, to see if your transaction was secure.
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In November 2023, the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office had worked in coordination with Romanian law enforcement to target 84 locations in the European country connected with skimming and money laundering.
Along with seizing roughly $1 million in assorted currencies and 11 vehicles, 48 arrest were made. 8,000 stolen credit card numbers were also recovered and many of the arrestees were associated with alleged Riviera Maya Gang leader Florian Tudor.
Meanwhile, in January, 39-year-old Florin Duduianu was found guilty of two counts of aggravated identity theft and a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California explained, “During a search of Duduianu’s cellphone, law enforcement found dozens of photos and videos related to ATM skimming as well as tools and techniques used to skim EBT information. Law enforcement also found photos of large sums of cash and hundreds of EBT numbers from multiple states. In the chat history of Duduianu’s phone, the government found an article about EBT fraud that was sent from his phone to four other phone numbers.”
At a March 29 sentencing hearing, the Duduianu faces “statutory maximum sentence of 30 years in federal prison for each bank fraud count,” having pled guilty to three, “up to 20 years in federal prison for the unauthorized access devices count, and a mandatory two-year prison sentence consecutive to his underlying sentence for each aggravated identity theft count.”
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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