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Romanian mobsters cross border illegally, steal what they can and cut off ankle monitors if they get caught: authorities
Prosecutors in California say the Romanian mafia has given a new look to an old scam — debit card skimming — by placing devices to steal personal information on self-checkout machines in grocery stores.
Debit card skimmers have long been problematic at gas stations and ATMs. Now a highly organized network of crooks is branching out.
“They’ll have people sitting outside a Walmart or a Target, and it looks like they’re panhandling,” says Kimberly Edds, director of public affairs with the Orange County District Attorney’s Office. “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.”
Surveillance video obtained by the El Cajon Police Department shows suspects can place a skimmer over the checkout’s credit card swipe in just seconds — and they look almost exactly like the real thing.
Police recommend tugging on a credit card swipe before inserting your card. If it wobbles or comes off, it’s fake.
Authorities say they’ve already busted dozens of suspects, most of them with ties to organized crime in Romania.
And despite large busts in December and January of dozens of suspects in the U.S., Europe and Mexico, where they are teaming up with cartels in tourist hot spots like Tulum, the thefts are increasing as thieves double down on their efforts, authorities said.
They could be raking in up to $9 million a month — much of it at taxpayers’ expense.
The skimmers, which can target EBT card users as well, have allegedly drained accounts the moment that the state releases monthly payments, according to Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer’s office, which announced a major crackdown on such crimes earlier this year. As a result, more than $100 million worth of thefts robbed taxpayer-funded welfare programs and their recipients.
“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,” Spitzer said in a statement. “Meanwhile, 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.”
On top of that, the porous southern border gives the mobsters a steady supply of new muscle, while a combination of lax bail policies and incomplete criminal records allow members to cut off their ankle monitors and flee justice if they get arrested.
