CIPRIAN VIOREL VARTOLOMEI, CATALIN PUSCASU, ION FLORIN OPROIU indicted

An indictment was returned by a Grand Jury charging three Romanian nationals with conducting an elaborate ATM skimming scheme throughout several Michigan cities, announced United States Attorney Matthew Schneider.

This indictment charges CIPRIAN VIOREL VARTOLOMEI, 38 (aka: Eric Rene Fuss, Dumitru Movradin, and Costica Andriesei), CATALIN PUSCASU, 36 (aka: Bjorn Ove Sigbjornsen and Jean Francois Margelli), and ION FLORIN ,OPROIU 45 (aka: Dominik Gerza) with two counts of access device fraud (Oprious is charged with only one count) and one count of aggravated identity theft.

According to the indictment, the above defendants obtained fraudulent foreign passports and driver’s licenses to obtain lodging, establish fraudulent bank accounts, wire money, and establish fraudulent accounts with private or commercial interstate shipping carriers.  Their scheme included the manufacture of counterfeit access device making equipment, commonly referred to as “skimming” devices.  These devices were installed inside ATM machines to capture victims’ bank account numbers.  In addition, the defendants installed small hidden cameras along with the skimmer to capture victims PIN numbers.  The perpetrators would later recover the skimming devices and hidden cameras and use the captured data to create fraudulent or altered access devices which they used, in conjunction with the victims’ PINs, to steal money from bank accounts through ATM machines.

According to the indictment, the compromised information pertains to members of a few credit unions in several Michigan cities, including Jackson, Hillsdale, Milan, Vandercook, and Battle Creek. Over $90,000 in cash was recovered from the defendants upon their arrest and from an apartment they had rented.  Also recovered were numerous equipment and tools used in manufacturing skimming devices and hundreds of fraudulent credit/debit/gift cards.

All three defendants are currently in custody on immigration violations and will be brought to Federal Court in the Eastern District of Michigan for arraignment on the indictment in the next few days. 

The case was investigated by the Southeast Michigan Financial Crimes Task Force including members of the United States Secret Service, Homeland Security, West Bloomfield and Royal Oak Police Departments and other agencies.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Abed Hammoud with the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Michigan in Detroit.

An indictment is only a charge and is not evidence of guilt. Every defendant is entitled to a fair trial in which it will be the government’s burden to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.